ALVMNVS  BOOK  FVND 


HAMILTON   FISH 


HAMILTON  FISH 


BY 

A.  ELWOOD  CORNING 

AUTHOR    OF    WILLIAM    MC  KINLEY,    A    BIOGRAPHICAL    STUDY  J 
WILL   CARLETON,    A   BIOGRAPHICAL   STUDY;    ETC. 


With  Frontispiece 


NEW  YORK 

THE  LANMERE  PUBLISHING   CO, 
1918 


COPYRIGHT,  1918,  BY 
A.   ELWOOD   CORNING 


Published  October,  1918 


BURR   PRINTING   HOUSE,    NEW   YORK 


TO  MY  FRIEND 

Captain  Hamilton  Jf  teft,  3Tr. 

THIS  BRIEF  MONOGRAPH 

THE  WRITING  OF  WHICH  HE  MADE  POSSIBLE 

IS  GRATEFULLY  DEDICATED 

BY  THE  AUTHOR 


393884 


CONTENTS 

CHAPTER  PACK 

INTRODUCTION 7 

I.    EARLY  LIFE  AND  BEGINNINGS  IN  POLITICS  .  n 
II.     IN    CONGRESS — STATE    ELECTION    OF    1846 — 

LIEUTENANT-GOVERNOR             23 

III.  GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK 30 

IV.  UNITED  STATES  SENATOR — EUROPEAN  TRAVEL 

— PUBLIC  SERVICE  DURING  THE  WAR  .      .  35 

V.     SECRETARY  OF  STATE 49 

VI.     THE  TREATY  OF  WASHINGTON 59 

VII.     THE  TREATY  OF  WASHINGTON,  continued     .  75 

VIII.     THE     CUBAN     REBELLION — THE     VIRGINIUS 

AFFAIR •  &5 

IX.     RELATIONS  WITH   SAN  DOMINGO — THE  CUR 
RENCY  VETO 93 

X.     IN  RETIREMENT — MAN  AND  STATESMAN   .      .  104 


[5] 


INTRODUCTION 

BY  HONORABLE  JOHN  BASSETT  MOORE,  LL.D. 

Professor  of  International  Law  and  Diplomacy  in  Columbia 

University 

THE  author  of  the  present  sketch  has  asked  me  to  con 
tribute  an  introductory  word.  My  interest  in  his 
subject  has  induced  me  to  comply. 

Upwards  of  forty  years  have  elapsed  since  Hamilton 
Fish  relinquished  the  post  of  Secretary  of  State,  and,  on  the 
verge  of  his  seventieth  year,  ended  his  public  career.  When 
drafted  into  the  cabinet  of  Grant,  it  was  twelve  years  since 
he  had  held  public  office.  Prior  to  that  interval,  he  had 
served  as  a  member  of  the  national  House  of  Representa 
tives  ;  as  Lieutenant-Governor,  and  then  as  Governor,  of 
his  native  State;  and  as  a  Senator  of  the  United  States. 
He  had  neither  extolled  his  own  virtues,  nor  sought  popu 
lar  favor  and  admiration  by  rhetorical  efforts.  In  the  Con 
gress  he  had  made  no  speeches;  and  in  the  various  official 
positions  he  occupied  his  activities,  so  far  as  they  found 
formal  expression  in  words,  were  recorded  in  grave  State 
papers  which  comparatively  few  persons  ever  saw  and  still 
fewer  cared  to  read. 

Nevertheless,  in  his  day  and  generation  he  enjoyed  an 
exceptionally  large  measure  of  public  confidence.  As  a 
trustee  of  ecclesiastical,  educational,  and  benevolent  institu 
tions,  to  which,  when  not  in  public  life,  he  gave  much  of 
his  time  and  thought;  as  the  associate  and  adviser  of  men 
of  affairs  and  men  of  business,  of  men  who  desired  sound 

[7] 


INTRODUCTION 

and  stable  conditions  rather  than  opportunities  for  adven 
ture,  he  was  held,  by  reason  of  his  breadth  of  view,  sure- 
ness  of  judgment  and  practical  capacity,  in  the  highest 
esteem.  These  respect-compelling  qualities  he  carried  into 
public  office,  where,  united  with  a  keen  sense  of  honor  and 
strict  integrity,  they  enabled  him  to  advance  the  general 
welfare  and  to  elevate  the  standards  of  service. 

In  the  administration  of  the  foreign  affairs  of  his  coun 
try,  he  achieved  his  greatest  usefulness.  He  undertook 
the  task  at  a  critical  time,  when  many  difficult  questions 
were  pending,  and  when  intelligence,  experience  and  steadi 
ness  were  peculiarly  requisite.  Some  of  these  questions 
antedated  the  Civil  War,  but  others  were  of  later  origin, 
while  the  most  important  and  most  menacing  of  all,  that  of 
the  so-called  Alabama  Claims,  arose  out  of  that  great  con 
flict. 

In  the  treatment  of  these  complications,  Hamilton  Fish 
was  an  opportunist  only  in  the  sense  that  he  "took  occasion 
by  the  hand."  His  aims  were  clear  and  definite,  and  were 
steadily  pursued.  His  prime  objective  was  peace  with 
reciprocal  justice.  In  his  adherence  to  this  noble  and  prac 
tical  ideal,  he  had  his  official  chief's  full  and  loyal  support. 
It  is  true  that  the  particular  measures  he  recommended 
were  not  invariably  those  that  most  strongly  appealed  to 
the  President ;  but,  as  events  vindicated  his  wisdom,  Grant, 
who  was  peculiarly  free  from  vanity  and  egotism,  deferred 
to  his  judgment  and  trusted  him  more  and  more. 

Fortunately,  he  was  thus  enabled  to  complete  his  work. 
I  cannot  undertake  now  to  pass  it  in  review.  But  I  will 
say  that  the  Treaty  of  Washington  of  May  8,  1871,  for 
the  settlement  of  all  controversies  then  pending  with  Great 
Britain,  stands  out  as  the  most  comprehensive  international 

[8] 


INTRODUCTION 

adjustment  in  our  diplomatic  annals.  The  Geneva  Tribunal, 
for  which  it  provided,  still  presents  the  high-water  mark  of 
international  arbitration.  As  our  retrospect  lengthens,  the 
more  clearly  do  we  see  that  the  treaty  of  1871  was  the  turn 
ing  point  in  the  relations  between  the  two  countries.  Re 
garding  it  as  a  great  historic  monument,  if  I  were  asked  to 
select,  from  among  its  conscious  builders,  the  name  most 
worthy  to  be  inscribed  upon  it,  as  that  of  its  chief  designer 
and  creator,  I  should  not  hesitate  to  designate  the  name  of 
Hamilton  Fish. 

JOHN  BASSETT  MOORE. 
September  9,  1918. 


[9] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

1808—1893 

CHAPTER  I 

EARLY  LIFE  AND  BEGINNINGS   IN   POLITICS 

HAMILTON  FISH,  Governor  of  New  York,  United 
States  Senator,  and  Secretary  of  State  in  the 
cabinet  of  President  Grant,  was  born  in  1808,  in 
the  first  half  of  the  first  quarter  of  the  nineteenth  century, 
when  the  United  States  was  still  under  the  influence  politi 
cally  of  old-world  conservatism,  and  died  in  1893,  four 
years  before  the  Spanish-American  War,  the  result  of 
which  extended  the  nation's  boundary  beyond  the  seas  and 
evoked  a  corresponding  national  obligation  by  thus  placing 
our  country  among  the  foremost  nations  of  the  world. 
Between  these  two  periods,  that  which  preceded  the  open 
ing  of  a  distinct  but  crude  nationality,  and  the  closing 
years  of  an  epoch  which  was  to  be  followed  by  an  era  of 
world-encompassing  influence,  the  career  of  Hamilton  Fish 
is  included.  The  span  of  his  political  life  embraced  two 
separate  periods,  though  the  paramount  issues  which  arose 
in  the  second,  and  with  which  he  had  mainly  to  deal,  may 
be  said  to  have  grown  out  of  the  first.  He  first  entered 
public  office  in  1843,  having  been  elected  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  in  which  he  served  during  the 
twenty-eighth  Congress.  From  this  time  until  1857  he  was 
almost  continuously  in  the  public  service.  Then  followed 


HAMILTON  FISH 

an  intervening  period  of  twelve  years,  in  which  he  seems 
to  have  been  preparing,  though  unconsciously,  for  the  his 
toric  role  he  was  destined  to  play  in  foreign  affairs  as 
Premier  in  the  cabinet  of  President  Grant ;  for  it  is  the 
period  of  his  Secretaryship  of  State,  which  began  in  1869 
and  lasted  until  1877,  an  interim  of  only  eight  years,  that 
the  most  eminent  political  history  of  his  life  belongs.  A 
man  who  never  zealously  sought  public  office,  Mr.  Fish 
therefore  did  not  expect  after  his  retirement  from  the 
Senate  in  1857  to  again  be  called  into  the  public  service; 
indeed,  only  the  repeated  importunities  of  General  Grant, 
as  we  shall  see,  induced  him  to  re-enter  official  life,  and 
then  only  with  the  understanding  that  he  would  be  released 
after  a  brief  term  of  service.  Only  an  innate  sense  of 
devotion  to  duty  and  loyalty  to  his  chief  deterred  him  more 
than  once  from  resigning.  But  as  his  achievements  in  the 
Department  of  State  are  passed  in  review  we  shall  see  how 
complete  and  important  they  were,  and  how  fortunate  that 
the  Government  chanced  to  have  as  Secretary  of  State  a 
man  who  was  able,  in  an  hour  which  nearly  threatened  the 
peace  of  America,  to  achieve  the  satisfactory  settlement  of 
an  issue  of  far-reaching  international  significance ;  for  to 
Hamilton  Fish  more  than  to  any  one  single  individual 
belongs  the  credit  of  having  brought  to  an  effective  termina 
tion  the  Treaty  of  Washington. 

Hamilton  Fish  was  born  on  August  3,  1808,  at  No.  21 
Stuyvesant  street,  in  the  city  of  New  York.  He  was  the 
third  child  and  eldest  son  of  Colonel  Nicholas  Fish,  a  Revo 
lutionary  officer  of  high  repute,  who  had  married  in  1803 
Miss  Elizabeth  Stuyvesant,  daughter  of  Petrus  Stuyvesant, 
a  lineal  descendant  and  heir  of  the  landed  property  of  the 
last  Dutch  Governor  of  New  Amsterdam,  whose  regime 

[12] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

covered  a  term  of  more  than  seventeen  years.  The  name 
of  Fish  is  of  English  origin.  The  first  glimpse  we  get  of 
the  family  is  in  the  reign  of  Henry  the  Eighth,  when  one, 
Simon  Fish,  or  rather  Fysche,  as  the  name  was  then  spelled, 
a  lawyer  in  Graies'  Inn,  London,  incurred  the  displeasure 
of  Cardinal  Wolsey  by  impersonating  in  a  tragedy  that 
eminent  prelate.  The  alienation  was  so  intense,  according 
to  the  legend,  that  Fish  was  compelled  to  live  for  two 
years  out  of  the  country.  While  abroad  he  wrote  a  succinct 
but  comprehensive  treatise  on  "The  Supplication  of  Beg 
gars,"  which  so  pleased  "Master  Fox"  that  he  publicly 
commended  it.  It  later  fell  under  the  royal  eye  through 
the  efforts  of  Anne  Boleyn ;  and  having  met  with  the  favor 
of  the  king,  the  author  was  immediately  ordered  back  to 
England,  where  he  is  said  to  have  received  kingly  favors.1 

Considerably  more  than  a  hundred  years  passes,  how 
ever,  before  the  name  of  Fish  appears  in  America.  In  1637, 
Jonathan  Fish,  one  of  three  of  that  name — supposedly 
brothers — who  had  recently  come  to  these  shores,  having 
lived  at  Lynn,  Massachusetts,  moved  to  Sandwich,  on  Cape 
Cod.  In  1659  he,  with  other  thrifty  colonists,  helped  to 
found  the  settlement  of  Newtown,  Long  Island.  For  sev 
eral  years  he  served  in  the  magistracy,  and  also  held  other 
official  positions.  His  grandson,  another  Jonathan,  who  is 
said  to  have  owned  extensive  lands  in  the  village  of  New- 
town,  built  the  famous  "corner  house."  This  Jonathan 
Fish  also  held  public  office,  being  town  clerk  for  fifteen 
years.  He  died  in  1723  at  the  age  of  forty-three.  After 
the  lapse  of  two  generations  we  come  down  to  Nicholas 
Fish,  great-grandson  of  Jonathan,  and  father  of  the  states 
man. 

1  Worthies  of  England,  Vol.  I,  p.  492.  London:  1811. 

L'3] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Colonel  Nicholas  Fish  seems  to  have  been  a  man  of  con 
siderable  prominence,  both  socially  and  politically.  Born 
in  1758,  in  the  city  of  New  York,  he  was  a  student  of  law 
in  the  office  of  General  John  Morin  Scott,  when  he  received 
in  April,  1776?  a  commission  of  Brigade  Major  in  General 
Scott's  command.  Having  been  transferred  early  in  the 
war  to  the  Continental  line,  he  was  in  active  service  until 
the  close  of  hostilities,  participating  in  both  battles  of  Sara 
toga,  and  commanding  a  corps  of  light  infantry  at  the  bat 
tle  of  Monmouth.  In  1778  he  was  made  a  Division  In 
spector  under  General  Steuben ;  and  his  active  participation 
in  the  Yorktown  campaign,  which  resulted  in  the  surrender 
of  Lord  Cornwallis,  was  publicly  referred  to  by  General 
LaFayette  forty-three  years  later  when  the  distinguished 
Frenchman  visited  that  celebrated  battle-field.  The  occa 
sion  was  of  great  historic  interest,  and  the  ceremonies 
which  welcomed  the  old  hero  were  very  impressive.  As  a 
"civic  wreath"  was  about  to  be  placed  upon  the  head  of 
LaFayette  he  caught  it,  and  holding  it  in  his  right  hand 
touchingly  responded  in  a  few  well-chosen  words,  in  which 
he  alluded  to  the  gallant  Hamilton,  who  was  in  command 
of  the  attack,  and  "to  the  three  field  officers  who  seconded 
him,  Gimat,  Laurens,  and  Fish,  the  only  surviving  one,  my 
friend  now  near  me."  "Here,"  he  said,  turning  to  Colonel 
Fish,  who  stood  by  his  side,  "half  of  this  wreath  belongs  to 
you."  "No,  sir,"  replied  the  Colonel,  "it  is  all  your  own." 
"Then,"  said  LaFayette,  placing  it  into  the  Colonel's  hand, 
"take  it,  and  preserve  it  as  our  common  property."2 

In  1786  Colonel  Fish  was  appointed  Adjutant-General  of 
the  State  of  New  York,  an  office  he  retained  for  many 

2  The  Life  of  LaFayette,  by  an  Officer  in  the  Army  of  the  Revo 
lution,  p.  482.  Hartford:  S.  Andrus  &  Son,  1850. 

[14] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

years;  in  1794  Washington,  who  esteemed  him  as  friend 
and  comrade  in  arms,  made  him  a  Supervisor  of  the  Rev 
enue,  and  he  was  serving  as  Alderman  of  the  city  of  New 
York  when  in  April,  1809,  he  was  nominated  by  the  Fed 
eralists  of  the  State  as  their  candidate  for  Lieutenant- 
Governor,  but  in  the  election  was  defeated.  He  also  was 
an  active  member  of  various  benevolent,  religious,  and  liter 
ary  organizations,  and  in  1797  was  elected  President  of  the 
New  York  Society  of  the  Cincinnati,  of  which  he  was  one 
of  the  original  members.  "He  was,"  wrote  Mrs.  Lamb,  in 
her  "History  of  New  York,"  "a  representative  citizen,  of 
elegant  scholarship,  refinement,  and  good  breeding."3 

Such,  briefly,  was  the  career  of  Colonel  Nicholas  Fish, 
the  descendants  of  whom  have  made  a  succession  of  honored 
names  to  various  departments  of  public  life.  He  married, 
as  we  have  seen,  Elizabeth  Stuyvesant,  whose  natural 
graces  distinguished  her  quite  as  much  as  her  birth.  Her 
mother  was  Margaret  Livingston,  granddaughter  of  Rob 
ert  Livingston,  first  Lord  of  Livingston  Manor.  The 
family  of  Livingstons  were  of  Scotch  extraction,  and  while 
not  of  the  old  world  gentry,  like  the  Stuyvesants,  had,  since 
the  colonial  days,  been  acquiring  both  property  and  posi 
tion  until  at  this  time  we  find  them  at  the  height  of  their 
influence,  both  politically  and  socially.  Thus  the  immediate 
forbears  of  Hamilton  Fish  came  from  English,  Dutch, 
and  Scotch  blood,  the  coalition  of  which  was  an  example  of 
that  union  between  different  nationalities  which  in  America 
has  produced  so  happy  a  combination  of  characteristics. 
That  firmness  of  will  and  moral  stability  which  so  greatly 
characterized  the  early  Knickerbockers,  of  whom  Irving 

8  History  of  the  City  of  New  York,  by  Mrs.  Martha  J.  Lamb, 
Vol.  II,  p.  576. 

E'5] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

has  so  interestingly  written,  were  qualities  which  came 
through  his  mother  from  the  Stuyvesants.  Perhaps  no 
name  of  the  colonial  Dutch  aristocracy  is  more  familiarly 
known  to  the  present  generation  than  that  of  Peter  Stuy- 
vesant;  certainly  none  has  left  on  the  pages  of  the  early 
history  of  Manhattan  Island  a  deeper  impression.  His 
immediate  descendants,  while  by  no  means  so  conspicuous 
in  the  city's  life,  or  indeed  personally  so  individualistic,  were 
the  leaders  of  New  York  society  for  over  two  hundred 
years.  Their  landed  property,  said  to  have  been  the  greatest 
on  Manhattan  Island,  was  handed  down  from  generation 
to  generation ;  that  part  known  as  the  "Bowery"  comprised 
their  estate,  and  St.  Mark's  church,  in  Stuyvesant  Square, 
was  their  place  of  worship.  It  was  to  this  church,  only  a 
few  hundred  feet  from  the  house  in  which  he  was  born, 
that  young  Hamilton  Fish  was  brought  on  his  father's  birth 
day,  August  28th,  of  the  year  of  his  birth,  to  be  christened. 
The  record  is  still  preserved  in  the  archives  of  the  old 
church,  and  the  names  of  the  sponsors,  though  slightly 
dimmed  by  age,  are  clearly  readable. 

Thus  the  good  fortune  with  which  Fish  was  blessed 
through  life  may  be  said  to  have  begun  with  the  hour  of  his 
birth.  But  of  all  gifts  most  to  be  desired,  that  of  being 
born  of  wholesome,  loving,  and  honorable  parents  is  the 
best:  this  good  fortune  also  fell  to  him.  Of  his  boyhood 
we  know  but  little.  Youthful  emotions,  however,  were  not 
in  those  days  so  fruitful  of  expression.  Children  were  more 
restrained  than  now;  and  if  character  and  well-regulated 
manners  grew  out  of  so  rugged  a  discipline,  it  certainly 
furnishes  less  to  record.  The  city  in  which  he  passed  his 
youth  was  rapidly  becoming  a  democratic  metropolis.  The 
old  provincial  town  had  greatly  increased  in  population 

[16] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

since  the  days  immediately  succeeding  the  close  of  the 
Revolutionary  War,  and  contained  in  1808  over  ninety 
thousand  inhabitants.  The  houses  of  the  opulent,  usually 
of  brick,  were  surrounded  by  beautiful  grounds;  and  the 
house  in  which  Hamilton  Fish  was  born  (21  Stuyvesant 
street)  was  particularly  noted  for  its  extensive  gardens. 
It  is  still  standing,  and  the  front  remains  the  same  as  orig 
inally  built.  In  1824  LaFayette  was  entertained  there  with 
lavish  hospitality,  and  to  its  portals  the  hand  of  fellowship 
welcomed  many  of  the  honored  names  of  that  day,  includ 
ing  Alexander  Hamilton,  an  intimate  friend  of  the  family, 
and  in  honor  of  whom  the  son  was  named. 

The  boyhood  of  young  Fish  was  spent  mainly  in  the 
city  of  his  birth,  save  for  those  summer  peregrinations 
which  the  families  of  the  well  to  do  were  in  the  habit  of 
taking.  His  education  was  under  the  supervision  of  his 
father,  with  whom  he  seems  to  have  been  in  close  sympathy. 
He  was  prepared  for  college  at  the  then  famous  school  of 
Monsieur  Bancel,  "an  exiled  French  Legitimist";  and 
there  received  a  thorough  knowledge  of  the  French  lan 
guage  which  was  of  so  great  an  aid  in  his  administrative 
work  in  the  Department  of  State  over  fifty  years  later. 
From  Bancel's  he  proceeded  to  Columbia  College  in  1824, 
and  was  graduated  at  the  head  of  the  class  of  1827.  In  a 
letter  to  his  father  LaFayette  alludes  to  his  collegiate  rec 
ord,  and  warmly  congratulates  Colonel  Fish  on  his  son's 
success. 

Upon  his  graduation  Fish  turned  at  once  to  the  study  of 
the  law,  taking  up  his  reading  in  the  office  of  Peter  A.  Jay, 
the  eldest  son  of  the  first  Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States 
Supreme  Court.  Three  years  later  he  was  admitted  to  the 
bar;  and  in  1833  was  made  Commissioner  of  Deeds  for  the 

['7] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

city  of  New  York.  At  this  time  his  law  office  was  located 
at  15  Pine  street,  corner  of  Nassau.  He  later  formed  a 
partnership  with  William  Beach  Lawrence,  a  gentleman  of 
wide  acumen,  who  had  been  Secretary  of  the  Legation  at 
London  under  the  ministry  of  Albert  Gallatin.  Mr.  Law 
rence  also  was  the  editor  of  Wheaton's  "International 
Law,"  and  this  association  probably  led  Mr.  Fish  to  the 
study  of  Public  Law  which  was  of  supreme  service  to  him 
when  as  Secretary  of  State  he  was  required  to  deal  with 
questions  of  international  scope.  As  a  practitioner,  how 
ever,  he  confined  himself  mostly  to  chancery  and  real-estate 
law,  displaying  that  fidelity  and  promptitude  which  char 
acterized  all  his  efforts.  After  the  death  of  his  father  in 
1833,  he  succeeded  to  the  management  of  his  mother's  prop 
erty,  and  because  of  the  duties  which  this  involved,  to 
gether  with  a  natural  interest  in  politics,  he  was  compelled 
to  give  up  much  of  the  practice  which  even  in  so  compara 
tively  short  a  time  had  grown  to  be  lucrative. 

About  this  time  (1833),  the  Whig  party  may  be  said  to 
have  come  into  existence ;  and  Fish,  like  many  others  of  old 
Federal  antecedence,  united  with  it.  The  Federal  party, 
moreover,  had  practically  ceased  to  exist  by  1820,  and  for 
a  time  party  coherence  was  centered  almost  entirely  in  the 
so-called  Republican,  later  known  by  its  present  name, 
Democratic  party.  But  the  growing  opposition  to  the 
Jackson  administration  had  given  rise  to  the  creation  of 
various  political  elements  which  ultimately  united  under  the 
name  of  Whigs.  The  partial  success  in  the  State  of  New 
York  of  recent  city  charter  elections,  where  in  specific  cases 
a  majority  of  Whig  Aldermen  were  chosen,  had  served  to 
give  the  leaders  of  the  party  in  the  State  a  certain  unanimity 
of  political  confidence.  They  determined,  therefore,  to 

[18] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

make  the  gubernatorial  campaign  of  1834  a  spirited  contest. 
Seward  and  William  L.  Marcy  were  the  opposing  candi 
dates,  and  the  ability  with  which  their  respective  canvasses 
were  conducted  left  nothing  to  be  desired  so  far  as  they 
were  concerned. 

It  was  then  the  custom  to  select  candidates  for  the  Assem 
bly  in  open  mass  meeting.  Eleven  members  composed  the 
city's  representation  in  the  popular  branch  of  the  Legisla 
ture,  and  these  were  voted  upon  by  the  entire  electorate  of 
the  city  instead  of  by  districts  as  now.  On  the  evening  of 
October  28th,  the  Whigs  gathered  at  Masonic  Hall  and 
nominated  their  Assembly  ticket,  which  included  the  name 
of  Hamilton  Fish.  The  morning  Courier  and  New  York 
Enquirer  estimated  that  twelve  thousand  enthusiastic  par 
tisans  had  attended  the  meeting.  But  popular  enthusiasm 
is  sometimes  a  poor  barometer  of  political  strength.  The 
campaign  was  hotly  contested,  and  up  to  the  election  both 
parties,  as  usual,  were  confident  of  success.  The  polls 
opened  on  Monday,  November  3rd,  and  closed  on  the  6th, 
three  days  then  being  given  over  to  a  general  election.  But 
the  Whigs,  as  we  have  hinted,  went  down  to  defeat,  Fish 
receiving  over  two  thousand  less  votes  than  his  opponent, 
Prosper  M.  Wetmore. 

For  the  next  few  years  Mr.  Fish  identified  himself  with 
various  objects  of  a  public  nature,  promoting  the  establish 
ment  in  his  native  city  of  charitable  institutions,  public 
libraries,  and  numerous  kindred  organizations,  to  which 
he  liberally  extended  financial  aid.  The  material  welfare 
of  Columbia  College,  of  which  he  presently  became,  a 
trustee,  and  of  the  Protestant  Episcopal  Church,  of  which 
he  was  a  member,  also  received  his  loyal  support.  He  was 
much  in  the  company  of  his  mother's  brother,  Peter,  who 

[19] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

was  the  head  of  the  family  of  Stuyvesants  of  that  day,  and 
a  large  share  of  whose  wealth  he  inherited.  From  both 
his  father  and  mother  came  separate  fortunes ;  so  that  at 
an  early  age  Hamilton  Fish  became  the  head  of  the  family 
and  a  prominent  figure  in  the  New  York  society  of  the 
period.  His  punctilious  habits,  natural  dignity,  and  gener 
ous  disposition  made  him  highly  esteemed,  while  his  direct 
ness  of  speech,  good  judgment,  and  honest  motives  gave  him 
an  enviable  standing  even  among  those  who  in  every  city 
are  prone  to  look  with  disfavor  upon  the  man  who  is 
politically  ambitious. 

On  December  15,  1836,  Hamilton  Fish  was  married  in 
New  York  city  by  the  Rev.  Francis  H.  Hawks,  D.D.,  to 
Julia  Kean,  daughter  of  Mr.  Peter  Kean,  of  "Ursino,"  near 
Elizabeth,  New  Jersey.  She  was  lineally  descended  from 
William  Livingston,  the  first  Governor  of  New  Jersey, 
whose  home,  "Liberty  Hall,"  later  re-named  "Ursino,"  and 
still  standing,  was  one  of  the  most  prominent  residences 
during  Revolutionary  days.  It  was  erected  in  1773  by 
William  Livingston  and  was  his  home  at  the  time  he  signed 
the  Declaration  of  Independence.  In  1774  Alexander 
Hamilton  brought  to  Livingston  important  letters  from 
officials  of  the  West  Indies,  and  upon  his  host's  invitation 
made  "Liberty  Hall"  his  temporary  headquarters.  In  April 
of  the  same  year  John  Jay,  later  Chief  Justice  of  the  United 
States  Supreme  Court,  was  married  at  "Liberty  Hall"  to 
Sarah  Livingston,  a  daughter  of  the  owner ;  and  from  there 
Livingston  was  sent  as  a  delegate  to  the  first  Continental 
Congress  where,  having  served  with  distinction,  he  returned 
to  become  Commander-in-chief  of  the  New  Jersey  Militia, 
and  the  same  year  Governor  of  the  State.  His  power  of 
argument  and  vituperation  against  the  Tories  led  them  to 

[20] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

threaten  his  life,  as  well  as  the  demolition  of  the  Hall.  On 
one  occasion,  when  invaders  attacked  the  place,  he  sought 
refuge  in  flight,  and  only  through  the  ardent  intercession 
of  his  daughter  Kitty,  in  whose  keeping  he  had  placed  im 
portant  letters  from  Washington,  was  the  Hall  and  its  occu 
pants  saved  from  destruction.  In  1792  the  property  was 
sold  to  Lord  Bolingbroke,  but  was  afterwards  re-purchased 
by  Mrs.  John  Kean,  of  South  Carolina,  formerly  Miss 
Susan  Livingston,  granddaughter  of  the  original  owner, 
and  grandmother  of  Mrs.  Hamilton  Fish.  In  honor  of 
Mrs.  John  Kean's  second  husband,  Count  Julian  Ursin 
Niemcewiz,  the  old  Hall  was  changed  to  "Ursino,"  and  was 
known  as  such  during  the  girlhood  of  Julia  Kean. 

The  married  life  of  Hamilton  Fish,  which  was  terminated 
by  the  death  of  Mrs.  Fish  in  1887,  was  one  of  uninterrupted 
happiness.  From  all  accounts  Mrs.  Fish  must  have  been 
a  woman  of  rare  charm.  Adam  Badeau,  no  indiscriminate 
observer,  speaks  of  her  "sagacity  and  judgment"  and  says 
that  she  had  "rare  executive  ability."4  Another  contempo 
rary  writes  of  her  in  this  fashion :  "She  had  an  intellectual 
countenance,  noble  enough  to  belong  to  a  nun,"  and  "the 
mind,  heart,  and  manners  to  grace  the  White  House,  and  no 
greater  compliment  can  be  paid  to  an  American  woman."5 
In  deference  to  her  judgment  Mr.  Fish  once  remarked  that 
he  never  took  an  important  step  without  first  consulting  his 
wife.  Not  only  was  she  able  to  enter  to  the  fullest  extent 
into  the  subjects  that  interested  him,  but  presided  over  his 
home  with  a  grace  and  decorum  which  was  often  the  theme 
of  comment  among  those  with  whom  they  were  associated. 
Mrs.  Fish  also  was  extremely  tactful  in  political  society. 

4  Adam  Badeau,  The  Forum,  Vol.  XVI,  p.  291. 

5  The  Olivia  Letters,  by  Emily  Edson  Briggs,  p.  192. 

[21] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

She  is  said  to  have  advised  Mrs.  Grant  to  receive  the  wife 
of  a  foreign  diplomat  who  had  lived  with  her  husband  be 
fore  marriage,  averring  that  international  complications 
should  not  emanate  from  a  difference  of  social  code.  Dur 
ing  the  eight  years  that  her  husband  was  Secretary  of  State 
Mrs.  Fish  never  permitted  a  social  call  to  go  unreturned. 
Everyone  was  made  to  feel  perfectly  at  ease  at  her  drawing- 
room  receptions,  and  few  cabinet  ladies  have  ever  enter 
tained  more  frequently  or  so  lavishly. 

Eight  children  were  the  fruit  of  this  union.  Of  these 
five  were  daughters.  Nicholas,  the  eldest  son,  early  entered 
public  life,  as  did  his  brother,  Hamilton.  The  former  be 
came,  in  1882,  Minister  to  Belgium,  after  having  held  vari 
ous  diplomatic  posts.  In  1869  Hamilton  became  private 
secretary  to  his  father,  who  had  just  been  appointed  Secre 
tary  of  State.  He  later  was  elected  to  the  New  York 
Assembly,  serving  in  all  eleven  terms,  two  of  which  he  was 
Speaker.  He  was  twice  appointed  by  President  Roosevelt 
Assistant  Treasurer  of  the  United  States  at  New  York, 
and  in  1908  was  elected  to  the  Sixty-first  Congress.  Stuy- 
vesant,  the  youngest  son,  rose  to  be  President  of  the  Illinois 
Central  Railway,  and  is  at  present  a  banker  in  New  York. 


CHAPTER  II 

IN    CONGRESS — STATE   ELECTION   OF    1846 — LIEUTENANT- 
GOVERNOR 

FOR  twelve  years  after  his  unsuccessful  candidacy  for 
member  of  Assembly,  Fish,  while  taking  a  keen  in 
terest  in  all  political  movements,  was  not  an  aspirant 
for  public  office.  It  is  indeed  doubtful  whether  he  would 
have  consented  to  stand  for  Congress  in  the  fall  of  1842 
had  it  not  been  for  the  urgent  solicitation  of  friends.  But 
the  Whigs  of  the  sixth  Congressional  district  of  New  York, 
then  composed  of  the  eleventh,  twelfth,  fifteenth,  sixteenth, 
and  seventeenth  wards  of  the  city,  were  in  search  of  a  man 
of  ability  in  whom  the  electorate  would  have  entire  con 
fidence.  The  district,  strongly  Democratic,  was  then  repre 
sented  by  one  John  McKeon,  a  politician  of  great  party 
popularity.  The  Whig  leaders,  and  especially  the  friends 
of  reform,  selected  Hamilton  Fish  as  their  candidate.  He 
agreed  to  make  the  canvass,  and  was  elected  to  Congress 
in  November,  1842,  by  a  small  majority.  His  election, 
however,  was  considered  by  his  friends  as  a  personal  vic 
tory,  for  Governor  Bouck's  majority  over  Seward,  the 
Whig  candidate,  in  the  same  district,  was  about  twelve  hun 
dred. 

The  Twenty-eighth  Congress  convened  on  December  4, 
1843,  and  on  that  day  Fish  took  his  seat  as  a  member  of  the 
House  of  Representatives,  and  served  throughout  that  Con 
gress,  the  Democrats  securing  control  of  his  district  when 
he  presented  himself  for  re-election  in  the  fall  of  1844.  A 

[23] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Whig  majority  of  19  in  the  preceding  Congress  had  been 
converted  into  a  Democratic  majority  of  61  in  the  twenty- 
eighth.  Then  but  twenty-eight  States  elected  Congressmen, 
Florida,  Wisconsin,  and  Iowa  having  Territorial  Delegates. 
The  House  was  therefore  organized  by  the  Democrats  with 
Mr.  John  W.  Jones,  of  Virginia,  as  Speaker.  In  this  Con 
gress  there  were  a  large  number  of  men  who  were  well 
known,  or  who  afterwards  attained  eminence.  In  the  dele 
gation  from  Massachusetts  were  John  Quincy  Adams,  a 
former  President  of  the  United  States,  and  Robert  C.  Win- 
throp,  who  was  later  to  be  Speaker  of  the  House,  and 
United  States  Senator.  Hannibal  Hamlin,  later  Vice-Presi- 
dent  in  the  first  Lincoln  administration,  came  from  Maine. 
Among  the  Ohio  delegation  were  Robert  C.  Schenck,  after 
wards  Minister  to  the  Court  of  St.  James,  and  Joshua  R. 
Giddings,  who  became  one  of  the  most  noted  anti-slavery 
apostles  of  the  West.  Virginia  sent  Henry  A.  Wise;  Illi 
nois,  Stephen  A.  Douglas ;  Georgia,  Alexander  H.  Stephens, 
who  later  was  Vice-President  of  the  Confederacy;  while 
among  the  colleagues  of  Fish  from  New  York  was  Preston 
King,  who  was  to  succeed  Mr.  Fish  in  the  United  States 
Senate. 

Fish  entered  public  life  in  the  latter  half  of  the  Tyler 
administration,  and  just  before  the  opening  of  that  inter 
national  disturbance  which  resulted  in  war  with  Mexico. 
It  was,  moreover,  a  period  of  political  calm  which  so  often 
precedes  a  storm.  Only  two  years  before  the  Whigs,  vic 
torious  in  the  election  of  Harrison,  had  come  into  power. 
The  President's  sudden  death,  and  the  rise  of  John  Tyler, 
with  whom  they  now  were  in  open  hostility — because  of  his 
failure  to  approve  their  bank  policy  in  which  they  were  led 
to  believe  he  favored — had  created  a  political  situation  of 

[24] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

which  history  had  no  precedent.1  The  Whigs  also  had 
suffered  a  diminution  of  membership  in  the  lower  body  of 
the  Congress  at  the  election  of  1842,  and  were  in  the  minor 
ity.  It  was  therefore  not  a  very  fortunate  time  to  enter  the 
House.  Fish  was  placed  at  the  foot  of  the  committee  on 
military  affairs,  an  appointment  which  then  afforded  no 
opportunity  for  distinction.  This  single  Congressional 
term,  however,  gave  him  experience,  which  served  as  sort 
of  an  apprenticeship  in  national  politics. 

In  the  succeeding  year,  after  Fish  retired  from  Congress, 
local  issues  in  the  State  of  New  York  were  in  a  fluid  state ; 
they  were  not  fixed.  Party  fealty  was  easily  disrupted; 
sometimes  from  political  principle,  but  more  often  through 
the  personal  ambitions  of  politicians,  adherents  of  a  party 
would  divide  into  groups.  This  was  the  situation  in  the 
Democratic  party  in  1846,  which  may  be  said  to  have 
worked  to  the  advantage  of  the  Whigs. 

This  division  came  during  the  administration  of  Governor 
Silas  Wright,  and  the  two  groups  were  known  as  "Barn 
burners,"  who  opposed  the  further  spread  of  slavery,  and 
"Old  Hunkers,"  who  endeavored  to  prevent  any  agitation 
of  the  subject.  The  Governor,  it  appears,  had  allied  him 
self  with  the  former  group,  and  the  breach  had  grown  to 
such  proportions  that  those  belonging  to  the  latter  class 
strongly  opposed  his  re-election.  John  Young,  who  aspired 
to  succeed  Wright,  gained  the  support  of  this  element,  and 

1  John  Tyler  was  the  first  Vice-President  to  succeed  a  President 
removed  by  death.  He  had  formerly  been  a  Democrat,  and  while 
he  had  opposed  some  of  Jackson's  measures,  his  advocacy  of  Whig 
principles  can  hardly  be  said  to  have  been  based  on  a  solid  founda 
tion  of  conviction.  Knowing  his  views,  it  has-  never  ceased  to  be 
a  mystery  why  the  Whigs  came  to  nominate  him  as  their  candi 
date  for  Vice-President. 

[25] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

although  a  partisan  opponent,  so  manipulated  his  candidacy 
that  he  received  the  nomination  at  the  Whig  convention  in 
spite  of  the  opposition  of  so  strong  a  party  leader  as  Thur- 
low  Weed,  who  rather  than  vote  for  him  left  the  hall  of 
the  convention  after  having  put  a  substitute  in  his  place.2 

To  appease  the  faction  in  the  Whig  party  who  looked 
with  disfavor  upon  the  nomination  of  Young,  and  also  to 
balance  the  ticket  geographically,  Fish,  one  of  the  younger 
representatives  of  the  eastern  section  of  the  State,  against 
his  personal  wishes,  became  the  nominee  for  Lieutenant- 
Governor.  But  having  previously  denounced  the  principles 
of  the  anti-renters,  he  failed  to  gain  their  support  at  the 
election,  and  therefore  was  defeated. 

The  anti-renters  had  been  acquiring  considerable  political 
influence  since  1839,  and  although  by  1846  their  power  was 
on  the  wane,  it  was  sufficiently  potent  in  some  of  the  central 
counties  of  the  State  to  affect  the  result  of  an  election. 
Anti-rentism  was  fundamentally  a  social  protest,  having 
grown  out  of  an  unequal,  and  therefore  undemocratic, 
social  system,  the  inception  of  which,  however,  originated 
long  before  a  republican  form  of  government  was  estab 
lished  in  America.  Under  the  Dutch  rule  in  New  Nether- 
land,  certain  families  of  sundry  nationality  were  granted 
huge  tracts  of  land.  The  heads  of  these  families  were 
known  as  "patroons";  and  their  descendants  were  still  in 
possession  of  these  lands  after  the  Revolutionary  War, 
when  the  laws  of  primogeniture  were  annulled.  Located 
mostly  in  the  settled  part  of  the  State,  they  were  leased  for 
specified  periods  to  cultivators,  who  in  place  of  rent  agreed 
to  pay  dues  and  personal  services,  which  in  time  came  to  be 
burdensome. 

a  The  Life  of  Thurlow  Weed,  Vol.  II,  p.  131. 


HAMILTON  FISH 

In  point  of  fact  such  a  system  was  not  in  keeping  with 
the  aims  of  democracy,  and  therefore  called  for  concerted 
action;3  but  the  fault  lay  in  the  method  of  procedure. 
While  the  State  was  remiss  in  not  adopting  at  the  outset 
measures  which  would  have  wholly  removed  the  cause  of 
conflict,  the  course  of  the  anti-renters  was  not  justified  by 
defying  the  reign  of  law  and  order.  But  this  they  did,  as 
we  shall  see.  In  1839,  a  body  of  farmers,  who  were  tenants 
on  the  estate  of  the  late  Patroon  Van  Rensselaer,  formed  an 
organization  for  the  purpose  of  resisting  the  payment  of 
rents.  The  movement  grew  apace,  until  it  resulted  in  the 
attempt  to  thwart  the  collection  of  all  manorial  rents  when 
these  were  sought  by  legal  process.  Cases  of  assault  were 
not  uncommon;  in  some  instances  lives  were  taken. 
Masked  armed  bands,  obviously  intended  to  terrify  the  inno 
cent  inhabitants,  also  were  prevalent,  until  the  lives  of  the 
sheriffs  and  their  deputies  were  often  in  peril.  So  intense 
had  become  the  situation  in  Delaware  County  in  1845  tnat 
Governor  Wright  declared  the  county  in  a  state  of  insurrec 
tion,  and  appealed  to  the  Legislature  for  its  suppression. 

But  the  criminal  feature  was  not  the  sole  aspect  of  the 
movement.  Soon  after  its  inception  it  took  on  a  political 
cast,  as  already  noted ;  and  in  order  to  gain  an  idea  of  the 
political  significance  of  the  issue  it  need  only  be  observed 
that  more  than  eighteen  hundred  thousand  acres  of  land 

8  This  Seward  recognized  so  early  as  1840,  when  he  spoke  in  his 
annual  message  of  such  land  tenures  "as  inconsistent  with  existing 
institutions,"  and  "odious  to  those  who  hold  under  them."  They 
were,  he  went  on  to  say,  "unfavorable  to  agricultural  improvement, 
inconsistent  with  the  prosperity  of  the  districts  where  they  exist, 
and  opposed  to  sound  policy  and  the  genius  of  our  institutions." 
Messages  from  the  Governors,  Edited  by  Charles  Z.  Lincoln,  Vol. 
HI,  P.  776. 


HAMILTON  FISH 

were  held  under  leases,  and  that  over  two  hundred  and 
sixty  thousand  people  lived  upon  the  lands  thus  held. 
Eventually  a  newspaper  sympathetic  to  the  cause  was  estab 
lished  at  Albany.  By  1842,  and  for  a  few  years  thereafter, 
it  is  said  that  one-eighth  of  the  Legislature  favored  anti- 
rentism,  and  that  the  movement  subsided  only  after  a  clause 
abolishing  all  feudal  tenures  and  making  unlawful  the  leas 
ing  of  lands  for  agricultural  purposes,  was  incorporated  into 
the  revised  State  constitution  of  1846. 

Other  circumstances,  apart  from  his  opposition  to  anti- 
rentism,  may  have  been  instrumental  in  the  defeat  of  Fish 
for  Lieutenant-Governor.  But  it  is  hard  to  believe  that 
this  was  so;  for  he  had  incurred  the  enmity  of  the  anti- 
renters  because  he  insisted  in  attacking  their  illegal  prac 
tices.  The  charge  was  current,  however,  that  certain 
Whig  leaders  were  apathetic  toward  his  candidacy,  and 
when  after  the  election  these  rumors  failed  to  subside, 
Fish  made  a  public  statement  which  brings  out  very  clearly 
his  attitude  in  regard  to  the  subject,  at  the  same  time  leaving 
a  favorable  impression  of  his  own  disinterested  public 
spirit.  "I  observe  with  deep  regret,"  he  said,  "that,  since 
the  election,  my  name  continues  to  be  brought  before  the 
public,  and  is  becoming  the  theme  of  a  dissension  which  to 
me  is  extremely  painful.  During  the  canvass  I  desired  to 
shrink  from  no  responsibility  which  my  position  imposed 
upon  me,  and  from  no  scrutiny  which  it  required ;  but  now 
that  the  canvass  is  over,  and  the  result  is  known,  I  trust  it 
may  be  allowed  me  to  be  left  in  peace. 

"So  far  as  I  am  personally  concerned  in  the  result  of  the 
late  election,  I  am  satisfied  that  my  Whig  friends  generally, 
and  throughout  the  entire  State,  have  done  their  duty  to 
the  Whig  party  in  sustaining  its  nominee,  and  that  they 

[28] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

have  given  to  me  an  honest  and  cordial  support,  far  more 
zealous  than  any  merit  or  claim  could  ever  have  demanded. 
Doubtless  there  have  been  individual  cases  of  persons  who 
were  influenced  by  private  preferences,  or  other  considera 
tions,  which  have  been  paramount  to  the  obligation  of  party 
nominations,  but  such  cases  always  occur  to  a  greater  or 
less  extent,  and  do  not  conflict  with  the  opinion  above  ex 
pressed.  I  was  the  candidate  of  the  Whig  party,  and  can 
not  complain  that  members  of  a  different  party,  possessing 
a  distinct  and  independent  organization,  have  cast  their 
votes  in  favor  of  the  candidate  of  their  own  selection. 

'The  loss  of  my  election  brings  to  me  personally  no  re 
grets,  but  it  would  become  the  source  of  most  poignant 
grief  if  made  the  subject  of  disagreement  between  any 
Whigs.  Let  me  therefore  entreat,  for  the  harmony  of  our 
noble  Whig  party,  in  whose  union  is  success,  and  whose 
success  is  the  welfare  of  the  State,  that  the  loss  of  my  elec 
tion  be  not  charged  to  any  supposed  faithlessness  of  friends. 
A  glorious  victory  has  been  achieved,  upon  which,  from  the 
bottom  of  my  heart,  I  congratulate  you  and  every  Whig  in 
the  State — but,  'We  have  scotch'd  the  snake — not  kill'd  it/ 
and  may  lose  the  fruits  of  our  victory  by  dissensions  among 
ourselves;  but  if,  however,  dissensions  must  be,  I  have  to 
beg  of  my  Whig  friends,  one  and  all,  that  I  be  not  made  the 
subject  of  disagreement." 

But  Fish  was  not  to  remain  long  out  of  office.  Six 
months  after  the  election,  his  late  successful  opponent, 
Addison  Gardiner,  was  made  a  judge  of  the  newly  created 
Court  of  Appeals ;  and  under  an  act  passed  in  September, 
1847,  to  fill  the  vacancy,  Fish  was  elected  Lieutenant- 
Governor  on  November  2nd.  This  office  he  held  until 
elected  Governor  the  following  year. 

[29] 


CHAPTER  III 

GOVERNOR  OF  NEW  YORK 

WHEN  the  New  York  Whig  State  convention  con 
vened  on  September  14,  1848,  at  Utica,  Hamilton 
Fish  was  the  candidate  whom  the  majority  of  the 
delegates  favored  for  the  gubernatorial  nomination.  He 
had  been  Lieutenant-Governor  less  than  a  year,  but  his  con 
ciliatory  disposition,  together  with  a  certain  firmness  and 
moderation  of  speech,  with  which  he  presided  over  the  State 
Senate,  aided  in  bringing  to  his  support  men  of  all  factions ; 
and  on  the  first  ballot  he  received  76  votes.  Governor 
Young  and  Joshua  A.  Spencer  were  his  chief  opponents  in 
the  convention,  Washington  Hunt,  who  was  to  be  his  im 
mediate  successor,  having  written  a  letter  in  which  he  de 
clined  to  be  a  candidate.  Fish's  nomination  was  afterwards 
made  unanimous. 

The  Democrats  were  still  disunited.  John  A.  Dix  was 
nominated  for  Governor  by  the  more  progressive  element 
of  the  party,  who  were  dubbed  "Barnburners."  Their  con 
vention  was  held  on  the  same  day,  and  in  the  same  city  as 
that  of  the  Whigs.  The  "Hunkers,"  or  conservative  wing  of 
the  party,  placed  in  nomination  for  Governor  Chancellor 
Reuben  H.  Walworth.  Both  opponents  were  men  of 
proved  ability  and  integrity.  On  the  morning  after  the 
nominations,  the  New  York  Tribune  spoke  of  Fish  as  being 
"Wealthy  without  pride,  generous  without  ostentation, 
simple  in  manners,  blameless  in  life,  and  accepting  office 
with  no  other  aspiration  than  that  of  making  power  sub 
serve  the  common  good  of  his  fellow-citizens."  The  elec- 

[30] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

tion,   held  on   November   7th,  was  the  first   in  which  a 
Governor  was  elected  under  the  third  Constitution.     Fish's 
plurality  was  over  218,000,  Mr.  Dix  receiving  some  3,500 
anti-rent  votes  which  were  withheld  from  Fish  because,  as 
we  have  seen,  he  had  strongly  opposed  anti-rentism.     Fish 
was  now  forty  years  old,  and  the  youngest  man,  except 
Thompkins  and  Seward,  to  become  Governor  of  New  York. 
Two  years  later  Fish  was  not  a  candidate  for  re-election ; 
and  the  two  years  in  which  he  was  Governor  cannot  be  said 
to  have  been  a  period  of  importance,  so  far  as  the  history 
of  the  State  was  concerned.     But  he  had  hardly  taken  office 
before  it  was  apparent  that  underneath  his  natural  reserve 
and  temperate  speech  there  was  in  the  new  Governor  deep- 
seated  convictions  upon  questions  then  uppermost  in  the 
public  thought,  and  a  clear  conception  as  to  their  final  dis 
position.     This  was  clearly  shown  in  his  attitude  towards 
the  question  destined  to  become  the  paramount  issue  of  the 
day,  that   of   the   institution   of    slavery.     In  both   of   his 
annual  messages  he  referred  to  the  subject,  and  in  a  manner 
which  left  no  uncertainty  as  to  his  views.     The  most  dis 
turbing  element  of  the  slavery  agitation  at  this  time  lay  in 
the  attempt  on  the  part  of  the  slave-holding  States  and 
their  people  to  extend  involuntary  servitude  into  territory 
in  which  it  had  not  hitherto  existed.     This  naturally  kindled 
the  resentment  of  the  people  of  the  free  States.     If  slavery 
were  to  be  extended  into  territory  from  which  it  was  then 
legally  prohibited,  who  could  foresee  the  result  towards  which 
such  a  policy  would  lead  ?     While  deeply  cognizant  of  the 
dangers  involved  from  a  moral,  social,  and  political  point 
of  view,  the  constitutional  side   of  the  controversy  elicited 
his  best  thought. 

He  contended  that  "by  the  treaty  with  Mexico,  the  Terri- 


HAMILTON  FISH 

tories  of  New  Mexico  and  California  came  to  us  free ;  and 
the  laws  of  Mexico  abolishing  slavery,  which  were  in  force 
at  the  time  of  the  cession,  continue  to  be  operative  and  are 
not  affected  by  any  transfer  of  sovereignty  over  the  Terri 
tory."  "The  voice  of  the  people  of  California,"  he  said  in 
extending  his  argument,  "has  thus  been  expressed  in  favor 
of  freedom;  and  there  is  little  room  for  doubt  that  New 
Mexico  sympathizes  in  sentiment  with  California.  Con 
gress  cannot,  without  a  transgression  of  its  constitutional 
powers,  establish  slavery  within  this  territory ;  nor  can  it, 
without  the  violation  of  the  principles  of  justice,  and  an 
utter  disregard  of  the  wishes  of  the  people,  and  of  the  pro 
tection  which  it  is  bound  to  extend  over  the  territory  to 
which  it  has  acquired  the  title,  refuse  admission  to  the  new 
State,  or  countenance  or  sanction,  in  any  way,  the  introduc 
tion  of  slavery  within  the  territory.  And  without  the  sanc 
tion  and  the  assent  of  Congress,  these  newly  acquired  terri 
tories  are  secured  to  freedom,  and  must  remain  as  they 
now  are,  exempt  from  the  institution  of  slavery."1 

When  Hamilton  Fish  was  inaugurated  as  Governor  the 
State  had  a  population  of  less  than  3,000,000  people ;  hence 
there  was  not  that  complexity  of  governmental  machinery 
as  exists  now.  In  his  first  annual  message  to  the  Legisla 
ture  he  reviewed  the  State's  financial  condition,  alluded  with 
satisfaction  to  the  increased  number  of  children  taught  in 
the  common  schools  over  the  number  reported  the  preced 
ing  year,  and  praised  the  establishment  of  libraries  which 
were  maintained  for  the  use  of  the  public.  In  this  connec 
tion  he  referred  to  the  liberality  of  the  late  John  Jacob 
Astor,  who  had  recently  left  in  his  will  a  donation  of  "four 

1  Messages  from  the  Governors,  Edited  by  Charles  Z.  Lincoln, 
Vol.  IV,  p.  501. 

[32] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

hundred  thousand  dollars,  to  the  foundation  and  perpetual 
support  of  a  library  for  the  free  use  of  the  public;"  and 
recommended  to  the  Legislature  to  grant  an  act  of  incor 
poration,  "to  render  the  management  of  the  library  and  its 
funds  safe  and  convenient."2  In  the  same  message,  among 
other  things,  the  Governor  advocated  a  gubernatorial  suc 
cession  bill,  which  suggestion,  after  having  passed  the  Legis 
lature  of  1849,  failed  in  the  Assembly  at  the  next  Legisla 
ture,  when  a  bill  for  its  submission  to  the  people  was 
presented.  The  original  suggestion  of  Governor  Fish, 
however,  as  to  adding  the  Speaker  of  the  Assembly  to  the 
gubernatorial  succession,  was  in  effect  embodied  in  the 
Constitution  of  1894. 

During  his  term  of  office,  and  on  his  recommendation, 
an  act  to  establish  free  schools  throughout  the  State,  was 
adopted.  An  asylum  and  school  for  idiots  also  was  estab 
lished.  The  New  York  Medical  College,  moreover,  was  in 
corporated;  as  well  as  appropriations  granted  for  the 
completion  of  the  normal  school  building  at  Albany,  and 
for  the  continuation  of  the  Genesee  Valley,  and  Black  River 
canals.  Governor  Fish  brought  to  the  attention  of  the 
Legislature  of  1850  the  fact  that  there  was  no  complete  col 
lection  of  the  Colonial  Laws  of  New  York,  and  recom 
mended  a  competent  commission,  to  serve  without  remun 
eration,  to  superintend  such  a  publication.  The  "permanent 
possession  and  control"  of  Washington's  Headquarters,  at 
Newburgh,  N.  Y.,  also  was  effected  while  Mr.  Fish  was 
Governor. 

It  is  significant  that  no  bill  which  he  disapproved  was 
ever  passed  over  his  veto;  and  in  one  of  his  last  veto  mes- 

2  Messages  from  the  Governors-,  Edited  by  Charles  Z.  Lincoln, 
Vol.  IV,  pp.  428-29. 

[33] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

sages,  he  took  occasion  to  remonstrate  against  the  large 
number  of  bills  passed  during  the  closing  days  of  the  session. 
Vigilant  in  his  own  exercise  of  public  duty,  he  wished  time 
to  fairly  consider  each  measure  in  all  its  ramifications; 
and  when  during  the  last  five  days  of  a  session  there  were 
presented  to  him  "no  less  than  two  hundred  and  one  bills, 
extending  over  three  hundred  and  fifty-three  pages  of  the 
session  laws,"3  he  admonished  the  members  of  the  Legisla 
ture  to  use  the  utmost  care  in  the  preparation  of  all  bills; 
and  reminded  them  that  the  legislative  and  executive 
branches  of  the  Government  were  jointly  responsible.  It 
was  later  contended  that  the  Governor  had  power  to  sign 
bills  at  his  leisure;  the  restriction  of  time  of  executive 
approval,  however,  was,  in  1874,  limited  to  thirty  days  after 
the  adjournment  of  the  Legislature. 

While  at  the  head  of  the  State,  Governor  Fish  came  very 
near  entering  the  Federal  service.  Three  members  of 
President  Taylor's  cabinet  having  become  compromised,  be 
cause  of  the  so-called  "Galphin  Claim,"  the  President  de 
termined  in  the  winter  of  1849-50  to  make  changes  in  the 
personnel  of  his  official  family.  On  the  suggestion  of 
Thurlow  Weed,  with  whom  the  President  counseled, 
Governor  Fish  was  selected  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury,* 
and  would  have  entered  the  new  cabinet  but  for  the  un 
timely  death  of  President  Taylor  in  July,  1850. 

3  Messages   from  the  Governors,  Edited  by  Charles   Z.   Lincoln, 
Vol.  IV,  p.  523- 
*The  Life  of  Thurlow  Weed,  Vol.  I,  p.  591. 


[34] 


CHAPTER  IV 

UNITED   STATES    SENATOR — EUROPEAN    TRAVEL — PUBLIC 
SERVICE  DURING  THE   WAR 

HAMILTON  FISH,  as  already  observed,  was  not  a 
candidate  to  succeed  himself  as  Governor.  This 
was  generally  understood  when  the  leaders  of  his 
party,  with  whom  it  may  be  said  he  was  on  most  cordial 
terms,  began  to  cast  about  for  a  gubernatorial  candidate. 
Just  before  leaving  Albany  he  sent  a  volume  of  "Literary 
Curiosities"  to  Thurlow  Weed,  then  a  great  power  in  Whig 
policies,  "as  a  very  slight  testimonial"  of  his  appreciation  of 
that  gentleman's  "uniform  and  uninterrupted  kindness" 
which  he  had  received  "from  the  first  moment"  of  his  "en 
trance  upon  public  duties."  "I  came  here  without  claims 
upon  your  kindness,"  he  writes  in  a  note  which  accompanied 
the  gift,  "I  shall  leave  here  full  of  the  most  grateful  recol 
lections  of  your  favors  and  good  will."1 

When  the  Legislature  convened  in  January,  its  first  im 
portant  function  was  to  elect  a  United  States  Senator  to 
succeed  Daniel  S.  Dickinson.  Washington  Hunt,  the  Whig 
candidate,  had  been  chosen  Governor  by  a  small  majority 
over  Horatio  Seymour  in  the  preceding  November.  Presi 
dent  Fillmore,  having  become  alienated  from  Seward  and 
Weed,  rallied  to  his  support  those  Whigs  who  were  in  sym 
pathy  with  the  Federal  administration,  and  through  them 
endeavored  to  gain  control  of  the  New  York  Whig  con 
vention  which  after  a  most  exciting  session  finally  nomi- 

1  The  Life  of  Thurlow  Weed,  Vol.  II,  p.  190. 

[35] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

nated  Mr.  Hunt.  Failing  in  their  object,  the  Fillmore  Whigs 
carried  their  battle  to  the  polls;  but  the  returns  of  the 
legislative  districts,  though  close,  indicated  a  Seward-Weed 
victory. 

The  contest  between  these  two  factions,  however,  was  re 
newed  when  the  Legislature  met  in  January.  It  now  cen 
tered  around  Hamilton  Fish,  who  had  become  the  candidate 
of  the  Seward-Weed  Whigs.  He  had  a  clear  majority  in 
the  Assembly,  but  lacked  one  vote  in  the  Senate,  which  from 
a  party  point  of  view  belonged  of  right  to  him.  The  Sena 
tor  who  felt  constrained  to  vote  against  Mr.  Fish,  however, 
was  greatly  concerned,  it  appears,  over  Fish's  prospective 
attitude  in  regard  to  the  stand  he  would  take  on  the  com 
promise  measures  as  a  final  settlement  of  the  slavery  agita 
tion.  Henry  Clay,  who  had  been  the  foremost  advocate 
of  the  compromise  measures,  and  a  man  whom  Fish  had 
always  admired,  wrote  a  letter  to  the  Collector  of  the  Port 
of  New  York,  in  which  he  strongly  intimated  that  the 
State  Senator  in  question  ought  to  withhold  his  vote  until 
Mr.  Fish  had  stated  publicly  his  position.  Hearing  that 
such  a  letter  had  been  written,  and  that  it  was  being  used 
derogatorily,  the  candidate  wrote  a  spirited  letter  to  the 
great  Commoner,  who  had  so  imprudently  been  drawn  into 
the  contest,  in  which  he  said  in  part : 

"I  have  desired  no  concealment  of  my  opinions  upon  the 
various  important  measures  of  the  last  session  of  Congress, 

nor  (although  Mr ,  his  employees,  and  certain  other 

disappointed  aspirants  for  the  Senatorship  may  affect  ignor 
ance,  or  may  assert  that  my  views  have  been  withheld)  has 
there  been  any  concealment.  It  is  true  that  since  the  adop 
tion  of  those  measures  I  have  had  no  occasion  for  a  public 

[36] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

or  official  expression  of  opinion.  It  is  neither  in  accordance 
with  my  habits  nor  my  taste  to  protrude  myself  or  my  opin 
ions  upon  the  public,  but  I  have  both  in  conversation  and 
in  correspondence  expressed  my  opinions  very  freely  both 
upon  the  propriety,  policy  and  details  of  several  measures 
of  the  last  Congress,  and  upon  the  imperative  and  absolute 
importance  of  the  enforcement  of  all  laws,  however  dis 
tasteful  they  may  be  to  sectional  feelings,  and  of  the  strict 
est  regard  for  the  supremacy  of  the  law.  .  .  .  While  the 
election  was  immediately  pending  I  certainly  did  decline  to 
be  interrogated.  .  .  .  While  a  candidate  I  declined  an 
swering  any.  I  had  not  offered  or  been  instrumental  in 
making  myself  a  candidate  for  the  United  States  Senate. 
I  had  asked  no  gentleman  to  vote  for  me.  I  held  a  position 
entirely  too  elevated  and  dignified  to  be  the  object  of  even 
securing  personal  interference  or  solicitation  on  the  part 
of  the  candidate.  Because  I  had  no  public  opportunity  of 
expressing  any  opinions  on  those  questions,  I  would  not 
do  so  on  the  eve  of  the  election,  lest  the  expression  might 
be  supposed  to  be  directed  so  as  to  influence  those  who  were 
to  vote  upon  the  question.  I  therefore  prefer  to  refer  all 
inquirers  to  what  I  had  previously  said  and  written,  and  let 
them  judge  me  by  my  past  action  in  life  and  by  the  opinions 
I  had  officially  expressed  upon  all  questions  upon  which  it 
had  become  necessary  to  express  opinions  while  I  have  been 
in  any  public  position.  .  .  .  The  State  may  be  left  with 
but  one  Senator,  or,  possibly,  a  Free-Soil  Democratic  Legis 
lature  may  next  year  send  one  of  their  faith;  but  high  as 
I  esteem  a  seat  in  the  United  States  Senate,  I  hold  my  own 
honor  and  character  too  high  to  attain  that  seat  by  what 
I  should  deem  a  sacrifice  of  consistency  or  of  self-respect." 
The  attitude  of  the  single  Senator  opposed  to  Mr.  Fish 

[37] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

continued  unchanged.  The  deadlock  lasted  until  March 
iQth,  at  which  time  two  Democratic  Senators,  being  in  New 
York  city,  the  Whigs  passed  a  resolution  to  go  into  an  elec 
tion.  After  a  prolonged  session  of  fourteen  hours,  Hamilton 
Fish  was  declared  elected.  In  the  following  December  he 
took  his  seat  in  the  Senate  of  the  United  States.  The  per 
sonnel  of  that  body  at  this  period  was  undergoing  a  change. 
Old  figures,  so  long  brilliant  lights  in  the  political  firma 
ment,  were  passing;  and  new  ones,  whose  leadership  had 
not  yet  been  tested,  had  come  upon  the  stage  of  political 
action.  Of  the  great  American  triumvirate,  Calhoun  was 
dead ;  Clay  was  soon  to  follow ;  and  Webster,  though  now 
in  Fillmore's  cabinet,  outlived  the  great  Commoner  but  four 
months.  Salmon  P.  Chase,  William  H.  Seward,  John  P. 
Hale,  of  New  Hampshire ;  Hannibal  Hamlin,  of  Maine ; 
Sam  Houston,  of  Texas;  and  Stephen  Douglas,  of  Illinois, 
were  already  members  of  the  Senate  when  Fish  became  a 
member  of  that  body;  while  among  the  newcomers,  who 
entered  the  Senate  on  the  same  day  with  Fish,  were  Charles 
Sumner  and  Benjamin  F.  Wade,  of  Ohio. 

It  was  now  to  these  "stronger  bodies  and  fresher  minds," 
as  Webster  wrote  to  Harvey,  in  September,  1850,  that  the 
mantle  of  authority  had  fallen.  Yet  singularly  enough  in 
the  coming  storm,  the  clouds  of  which  were  already  begin 
ning  to  gather,  the  ship  of  state  was  to  be  piloted  by  still 
other  hands,  by  whose  guidance  peace  was  once  again  to  be 
restored.  Yet  our  immediate  concern  lies  with  those  years 
which  preceded  the  final  struggle,  years  in  which  the  seeds 
of  disaster  were  sown,  and  out  of  which  was  born  the 
travail  of  four  years  of  terrible  strife.  During  this  period, 
the  period  that  witnessed  the  fateful  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
Compromise ;  that  saw  the  Kansas  struggle ;  that  beheld  the 

[38] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

passing  of  the  Whig  party,  and  the  rise  of  the  Republican 
party,  Hamilton  Fish  was  a  representative  in  the  upper 
House  of  the  Congress  from  the  State  of  New  York. 

A  representative  well  defines  his  position  as  a  Senator. 
He  was  not  an  orator,  and  therefore  was  not  a  conspicuous 
figure  in  debate  during  his  service  of  six  years  in  the  Sen 
ate.  It  was  his  habit  to  work  quietly  and  conscien 
tiously  in  whatever  sphere  of  activity  duty  called  him ;  and 
in  his  own  unobtrusive  manner  he  labored  perhaps  more 
zealously  and  more  effectively  than  many  of  those  who 
spoke  more  and  worked  less.  Peter  Cooper  well  summed 
up  his  Senatorial  status  when  he  wrote  in  a  letter  urging 
the  New  York  Senator's  support  in  behalf  of  a  certain  bill, 
"we  will  find  your  vote,  as  we  have  always  found  it,  on  the 
side  of  justice,  economy,  and  public  virtue."  That  Fish 
differed  from  some  of  his  colleagues  did  not  make  him  the 
less  cordial  in  his  personal  relations  with  them.  This  is 
seen,  for  example,  in  his  friendship  during  this  period  with 
Charles  Sumner,  with  whom  he  was  not  always  in  agree 
ment  on  the  slavery  question.  He  took  issue  with  Seward 
on  the  same  question,  and  took  no  part  in  1855  when  an 
attempt  was  made  to  form  a  Republican  party  in  New 
York.  He  regretted  the  continued  agitation  of  the  slavery 
question  in  the  Free  States,  and  attributed  the  defeat  of 
the  Republican  movement  of  that  year  to  the  "deep-seated 
predominance  of  a  strong,  conservative,  union-loving,  anti- 
agitation  feeling."  But  it  may  be  said  he  was  no  less 
opposed  to  the  further  spread  of  slavery,  and  had  in  the 
previous  year  written  to  his  friend,  Samuel  B.  Ruggles,  of 
New  York,  that  "although  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri  Com 
promise  will  beyond  question  pass  the  Senate,  I  should 
never  be  justified  were  I  absent  from  a  vote.  It  is  the  most 

[39] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

flagrant  outrage  which  a  dominant  faction  has  ever  yet 
ventured  upon  in  this  country." 

It  was  during  Mr.  Fish's  service  in  the  Senate  that  the 
old  Whig  party  ceased  to  exist.  For  over  twenty  years  it 
had  been  the  chief  opponent  of  the  Democratic  party,  dur 
ing  which  time  it  had  twice  won  the  presidency,  only  to 
find  its  lease  of  power  slip  away  upon  the  death  of  its 
chosen  leaders.  Now  as  the  presidential  campaign  of  1856 
approached,  its  disintegration,  signs  of  which  had  begun 
before  the  campaign  of  1852,  was  about  complete.  Yet 
there  were  those  who  still  hoped  that  the  party  would  not 
become  wholly  extinct;  that  the  tranquillity  of  the  nation 
would  ultimately  be  restored;  and  that  the  party  would 
revive,  and  again  become  a  potent  political  organization. 

Hamilton  Fish  was  one  of  those  who  subscribed  to  these 
views,  and  consequently  was  loath  to  accept  the  changed 
situation.  So  late  as  September  12,  1856,  in  writing  to  his 
friend,  James  A.  Hamilton,  he  said:  "I  am  a  Whig.  I 
desire  no  additional  epithet,  neither  National,  or  Union,  or 
Conservative,  or  Free  Soil.  The  term  Whig  implies  Nation 
ality  and  devotion  to  the  Union  and  to  the  great  principles  of 
human  liberty  and  of  conservative  stability.  Whig  prin 
ciples  are  enduring,  and  not  dependent  upon  temporary 
issues,  or  questions  of  political  policy;  they  are  the  prin 
ciples  of  law  and  order,  of  the  rights  of  property  and  per 
son,  of  personal  liberty,  and  of  social  restraint,  without 
which  our  republican  institutions  must  cease  to  exist.  I 
am  reluctant  to  abandon  a  name  which  embodies  such 
principles  and  which  is  endeared  by  the  recollections  of  so 
many  trying  conflicts  through  which  it  has  been  borne  by 
illustrious  statesmen  whose  names  are  embalmed  in  the  his 
tory  of  the  country." 

[40] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Nor  did  he  abandon  the  name  Whig  until  he  had  ex 
hausted  every  means  of  preserving  intact  the  national 
Whig  organization.  But  however  earnest  in  his  desire  to 
maintain  the  continued  existence  and  usefulness  as  he 
termed  it  of  the  Whig  party,  he  came  to  see  early  in  June, 
1856,  no  prospect  of  the  Whigs  holding  a  national  conven 
tion,  because  the  idea  having  been  presented  to  the  public 
met  with  no  response,  "except  from  a  few  devoted  friends, 
who  remain  faithful  to  their  principles  and  their  name." 
But  even  the  beliefs  of  these  friends  were  widely  different. 
Some  approved  the  so-called  filibustering  foreign  policy 
of  the  Government,  as  well  as  the  extreme  pro-slavery  doc 
trine  of  the  party  in  power;  others  were  diametrically 
opposed  to  the  foreign  policy,  but  were  sympathetic  towards 
the  internal  policy ;  a  third  class  were  conservative  in  both, 
but  with  slavery  proclivities;  and  a  fourth  were  strongly 
against  both  the  foreign  and  domestic  policies  of  the  Pierce 
administration,  and  in  favor  of  the  cause  of  freedom,  or 
perhaps  more  accurately  speaking,  of  the  non-extension 
of  slavery. 

"The  occurrences  of  the  day,"  Mr.  Fish  writes  on  June 
13,  1856,  to  his  friend,  James  A.  Hamilton,  "the  prevalence 
of  disorder,  frequency  of  disturbance  of  the  peace,  outrage 
and  brute  force  here,  violence,  usurpation  and  invasion 
in  Kansas,  the  complications  (wanton  and  unnecessary)  of 
our  foreign  relations — all  tend  to  fearful  results,  and 
devolve  important  responsibilities. 

"You  and  I  cannot  agree  to  identify  ourselves  with  a 
sectional  party,  and  yet  what  prospect  is  there  of  a  sound 
national  organization  with  which  those  entertaining  your 
opinions  and  mine  can  freely  act.  The  Democratic  party 
is  national,  in  so  far  as  that  it  extends  across  the  line 

[41] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

dividing  free  and  slave  States ;  but  its  platform  so  far  as  it 
relates  to  internal  policy,  is  purely  and  narrowly  sectional, 
and  to  my  view,  utterly  at  variance  with  and  subversive  of 
the  true  principles  of  the  Constitution  and  of  our  form  of 
government;  while  its  foreign  policy  is  that  of  the  pirate 
and  bandit,  and  invites  that  which  if  acted  up  to  will  soon 
produce  a  general  war  with  all  the  world  and  the  rest  of 
mankind. 

"The  American  party  has  an  element  of  nationality  in  its 
character  and  also  in  its  organization;  but  the  nationality 
which  characterizes  its  principles  is  not  peculiar  to  it  and 
cannot  be  appropriated  by  any  party  or  any  organization; 
while  its  creed  is  disfigured  by  intolerance,  proscription  and 
unconstitutional  tests.  .  .  .  We  cannot  be  rightly  placed 
on  that  platform.  Still  less  could  we  stand  on  the  plat 
form  which  the  Republican  party  attempted  to  adopt  last 
Autumn  in  New  York  and  perhaps  other  northern  States. 
It  had  not  an  element  of  nationality,  but  was  covered  all 
over  with  the  wildest  sectional  agitation. 

"These  are  the  parties  in  the  field.  Our  old  Whig  party 
is  dissolved  and  the  repeated  efforts  that  have  been  made 
to  call  together  its  scattered  numbers  has  thus  proved  so 
many  failures  and  during  the  existing  excitement  will,  I 
fear,  continue  to  prove  failures  as  often  as  repeated;  for 
while  this  excitement  continues  there  is  an  ever  present 
question  on  which  to  speak  is  to  divide,  unless  like  the 
democracy  we  surrender  the  honest  convictions  of  our 
heart,  our  education,  our  training,  for  the  base  consideration 
of  the  hope  of  place  and  power.  The  interests  and  sym 
pathies  of  our  southern  Whig  friends  have,  I  fear,  led 
them  far  towards  the  adoption  of  the  doctrine  embodied 
in  the  Democratic  platform  on  the  slavery  extension  ques- 

[42] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

tion.  We  cannot  adopt  this  doctrine,  and  they  would  not 
consent  to  say  that  upon  the  slavery  question  Whigs  may 
differ. 

"Unable  then  to  reorganize  our  own  party,  we  have  to 
choose  between  non-action  in  the  coming  contest,  and 
temporary  co-operation  with  one  or  other  of  the  three 
organized  parties.  .  .  .  My  general  sympathies  of  apprecia 
tion  and  of  locality  would  incline  me  to  the  Republican 
party,  as  against  the  Democratic,  leaving  the  American 
party  out  of  view  for  the  present.  The  call  for  the  con 
vention  in  Philadelphia  next  week  is  broad  and  catholic;  it 
is  not  addressed  to  the  Republicans,  but  to  all  opposed  to  the 
administration,  opposed  to  the  principles  of  the  Kansas 
bill  and  opposed  to  the  extension  of  slavery  into  free  terri 
tory.  You  and  I  are  embraced  in  each  of  those  divisions. 
If  then  the  convention  avoid  sectionalism  and  agitation,  as 
indicated  either  in  the  persons  of  their  candidates  or  in 
their  declarations,  why  may  we  not  temporarily  act  with 
them?" 

At  first  Mr.  Fish  declined  to  go  to  the  convention;  but 
Mr.  Fillmore's  letter  of  acceptance  of  the  Know  Nothing 
nomination  caused  him  to  reconsider  the  matter,  and  he 
finally  decided  to  go  to  Philadelphia  and  urged  the  nomina 
tion  of  a  conservative  candidate.  His  first  choice  was 
John  McLean,  of  Ohio,  one  of  the  safest  and  most  intelli 
gent  of  the  more  conservative  leaders  of  the  Republican 
party;  but  illness  finally  prevented  him  from  attending  the 
convention. 

Writing  to  the  same  friend  nearly  three  months  later  of 
the  result  of  the  convention,  and  of  his  own  decision  as  to 
his  course  of  action,  he  says :  "I  do  not  adopt  their  whole 
doctrine  with  all  their  denials  and  conclusions.  But  I  am 

[43] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

not  disposed  to  criticise  too  severely  an  honest  sentiment  in 
the  direction  of  liberty,  especially  when  uttered  in  the 
ardor  of  a  political  strife  of  unusual  excitement,  because 
of  some  extravagant  or  of  some  illogical  deductions.  The 
general  tendency  of  the  resolutions  on  this  point  is  honest 
and  right  and  is  consistent  with  a  power  which  has  been 
exercised  by  Congress  and  long  acquiesced  in  and  is  in  con 
formity  with  the  opinions  and  the  principles  of  Washington 
and  Franklin,  of  Hamilton  and  Jefferson,  of  Henry  and 
Jay;  principles  which  were  embodied  in  the  ordinance  of 
1787  and  which  underlie  the  whole  early  policy  of  the  Gov 
ernment. 

"If  these  principles  be  sectional,  what  is  national?  The 
right  to  permit  or  to  prohibit  slavery  in  the  Territories  is 
a  question  of  constitutional  power,  on  which  different  opin 
ions  may  be  and  are  honestly  entertained ;  but  the  assertion 
of  the  power  is  no  more  sectional  than  its  denial  and  is 
far  less  so  through  the  doctrine  of  recent  date  which  a  few 
southern  politicians  have  engrafted  upon  the  Democratic 
creed  and  have  embodied  in  the  Cincinnati  platform. 

"There  are  two  prominent  issues  involved  in  the  pending 
contest:  First,  the  slavery  question,  not  as  an  abstract 
question,  but  a  question  of  right  and  of  political  power. 
Shall  slavery  be  carried  into  territory  formerly  covered  by 
the  Missouri  Compromise?  And  second,  the  foreign  policy 
of  the  Government.  Shall  peace  and  justice,  or  violence 
and  outrage  be  its  policy?  This  latter  issue  must  not  be 
forgotten  or  overlooked.  As  there  are  practically  two  great 
questions  involved  in  the  contest,  so  is  the  issue  of  the  con 
test  practically  between  two  candidates — Buchanan  and 
Fremont. 

"What  then  is  our  duty  as  Whigs?    Can  we  support  the 

[44] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Democratic  candidate  and  perpetuate  the  policy  which  has 
induced  the  very  state  of  political  sectionalism  we  deplore 
and  into  which  we  have  been  plunged  by  the  acts  of  the 
present  administration?  Can  we  adopt  the  Democratic 
platform  and  surrender  the  principles  which  have  com 
mended  the  Whig  party  to  our  reason,  judgment,  and  affec 
tions?  Can  we  accept  the  views  which  are  likely  to  pre 
dominate  in  the  management  of  our  foreign  relations; 
should  the  doctrines  promulgated  at  Ostend  be  clothed  with 
executive  power  and  authority?  For  myself  I  must  an 
swer  these  questions  in  the  negative. 

"Let  us  turn  to  the  other  side.  We  find  no  assault  upon 
a  single  Whig  principle.  No  danger  of  an  unsafe  and 
belligerent  foreign  policy;  no  extreme  or  violent  proposi 
tion  in  regard  to  slavery  where  it  now  exists ;  but  only  that 
resistance  to  its  advance  and  spread  over  soil  long  since 
made  free,  which  we  have  ever  advocated.  Again  I  an 
swer  for  myself.  In  such  a  crisis  and  under  such  circum 
stances  my  voice  must  be  there.  I  can  without  difficulty 
perceive  my  way  clear  to  that  point,  and  though  a  Whig, 
shall  cast  my  vote  for  Fremont  and  Dayton,  esteeming 
such  a  course  the  best  and  surest  remedy  for  present  evils 
and  trusting  that  the  time  is  not  far  distant  when  political 
organizations  will  again  assume  broader  and  more  cath 
olic  grounds." 

After  his  retirement  from  the  Senate  Mr.  Fish  left  with 
his  family  for  Europe.  For  two  years  he  remained  abroad. 
His  daughters  were  placed  at  school  in  Paris,  and  during 
his  stay  on  the  continent  he  and  Mrs.  Fish  extended  their 
acquaintances  among  the  families  of  many  diplomats,  some 
of  whom  they  had  known  in  Washington.  In  England  they 
met  the  historian  Motley,  and  other  distinguished  Americans. 

[45] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Senator  Sumner,  who  was  at  this  time  under  medical  treat 
ment  in  Paris,  saw  much  of  his  former  colleague,  little 
anticipating  that  before  the  lapse  of  many  years  both  he  and 
Mr.  Motley  would  no  longer  be  on  terms  of  intimate  per 
sonal  relations  with  Mr.  Fish,  with  whom  they  were  now 
the  recipients  of  cordial  hospitality.  But  social  intercourse 
was  very  largely  mingled  with  a  study,  through  personal 
observation,  of  foreign  affairs,  a  subject  which  had  never 
failed  to  deeply  interest  him.  This  opportunity  was  of 
great  benefit  to  him  when  later  as  Secretary  of  State  he 
had  occasion  to  put  it  to  practical  use. 

Mr.  Fish  was  back  in  the  United  States  in  time  to  render 
effective  support  in  the  Presidential  campaign  of  1860; 
and  before  Lincoln  took  office  was  in  intimate  touch  with 
the  Federal  authorities  in  the  endeavor  to  aid  the  Govern 
ment  in  whatever  way  he  could.  His  secretary  was  offi 
cially  connected  with  the  preparations  which  resulted  in 
sending  the  merchant  steamer,  the  Star  of  the  West,  to 
Charleston  Harbor  with  supplies  for  the  relief  of  Major 
Anderson  at  Fort  Sumter.  The  manner  in  which  the  firing 
upon  the  Star  of  the  West  was  received  by  General  Scott 
is  recorded  in  a  letter  written  by  Mr.  Fish  some  twenty- 
four  years  later  to  Mr.  Allibone,  of  New  York,  and  now  in 
the  possession  of  the  Hon.  Victor  H.  Paltsits,  formerly 
State  Historian  of  New  York,  through  whose  courtesy  the 
contents  of  that  portion  of  the  letter  is  here  used :  "I  was 
in  Washington,"  says  Mr.  Fish,  "in  humble  efforts  to  aid 
in  the  emergency,  then  imminent.  I  lunched  or  dined 
almost  daily  with  General  Scott."  One  day  while  dining 
with  General  Scott  and  his  aid,  General  Keyes,  a  telegram 
was  handed  to  General  Scott,  who  after  reading  it,  said 
nothing.  "I  observed  a  deep  anxiety  in  his  contenance," 

[46] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

continues  Mr.  Fish,  "he  read  it  a  second  time  and  handed 
it  across  the  table  to  General  Keyes,  who  read  it,  said 
nothing  and  was  handing  it  back  to  the  General,  who  said, 
show  it  to  Governor  Fish.  Reading  it  I  observed  the  same 
silence  which  my  host  had  observed,  and  was  handing  it 
back  to  General  Scott.  It  announced  the  firing  upon  the 
Star  of  the  West  in  Charleston  Harbor.  General  Scott 
addressing  me  asked,  'What  have  you  to  say  to  that?'  I 
replied,  my  further  mission  in  Washington  is  useless.  I 
return  home  at  once;  this  (handing  back  the  telegram)  is 
WAR.  With  a  most  earnest  tone  the  General  exclaimed, 
'Don't  utter  that  word,  my  friend.  You  don't  know  what  a 
horrid  thing  WAR  is';  but  I  think  that  all  three  of  us 
realized  that  it  was  then  the  one  thing  inevitable.  There 
was  no  more  joyous  or  light  conversation  during  the  re 
mainder  of  our  sitting  that  day." 

Of  Mr.  Fish's  public  service  during  the  Civil  War  some 
thing  remains  to  be  said.  He  had,  as  already  noted,  enthusi 
astically  supported  Mr.  Lincoln  for  the  presidency;  but  it 
may  be  said  had  in  no  way  placed  himself  in  line  for  politi 
cal  office,  desiring  rather  to  be  free  to  aid  the  Government 
independently.  During  the  early  days  of  the  conflict,  how 
ever,  we  find  him  among  those  who  were  instrumental  in 
the  organization  of  the  Union  Defense  Committee  of  the 
State  of  New  York.  William  M.  Evarts,  Alexander  T. 
Stewart,  John  Jacob  Astor,  William  E.  Dodge,  and  Isaac 
Bell  were  among  others  to  whom  this  movement  owed  its 
rise.  Mr.  Fish's  great  influence,  his  wealth  and  ability  of 
organization  were  especially  of  value  to  his  associates  of 
the  committee,  of  which  he  was  made  chairman  after  the 
resignation  of  General  Dix,  who  had  taken  a  command  in 
the  army.  Of  great  importance  was  the  aid  rendered  to  the 

[47] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Government  by  this  committee.  Thrust  into  hostilities 
without  preparation,  with  even  Northern  allegiance  divided, 
the  administration  had  little  recourse  at  first  but  to  lean  on 
loyal  organizations  such  as  this,  whose  effective  help  in 
the  collection  of  funds  for  the  raising  and  dispatching  of 
troops,  as  well  as  other  immediate  needs,  was  of  such  a 
patriotic  nature  that  it  stood  out  as  one  of  the  great  move 
ments  in  the  successful  prosecution  of  the  Rebellion. 

In  1862,  by  direction  of  President  Lincoln,  Secretary  of 
War  Stanton  appointed  Mr.  Fish  and  Bishop  Ames  as  com 
missioners  to  visit  the  Union  soldiers  imprisoned  at  Rich 
mond  and  other  places  for  the  purpose  of  ministering  to 
their  comforts  and  otherwise  assist  them  in  their  needs. 
The  Confederate  Government,  however,  refused  to  receive 
the  commissioners  within  their  lines,  but  proffered  the  sug 
gestion  that  it  would  be  agreeable  for  it  to  enter  into  nego 
tiations  leading  towards  a  general  exchange  of  prisoners, 
to  which  the  commissioners,  upon  a  favorable  reply  from 
the  authorities  at  Washington,  agreed.  Eventually  an  equal 
exchange  of  prisoners  was  effected,  the  terms  of  which  con 
tinued  practically  unchanged  for  the  duration  of  the  war. 
With  this  service  Mr.  Fish  again  retires  from  public  view, 
to  return  in  four  years  as  Secretary  of  State  under  Grant, 
a  period  of  service  which  was  not  merely  an  epoch  in  his 
life,  but  in  American  politics. 


[48] 


CHAPTER  V 

SECRETARY    OF    STATE 

FROM  the  evidence  which  has  from  time  to  time  come 
to  light  it  is  obvious  that  Mr.  Fish  had  no  thought, 
during  the  campaign  which  resulted  in  the  election 
of  General  Grant  to  the  Presidency,  of  being  offered  a 
cabinet  portfolio.  Nor  indeed  did  his  taste  run  in  this  direc 
tion.  Mr.  J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis  has  left  on  record  the  state 
ment  that  it  was  Grant's  intention  at  first  to  appoint  Mr. 
Fish  ambassador  to  the  court  of  St.  James,  but  that  "cir 
cumstances  induced  a  change  of  mind."  Judging  from  the 
superior  service  Mr.  Fish  later  rendered  in  the  Department 
of  State,  the  President  could  not  well  have  chosen  a 
worthier  representative  for  the  English  mission;  but  Mr. 
Fish  was  not  a  self-seeking  statesman,  and  under  the  rule 
of  political  exigency,  a  man  of  his  caliber  is  too  often  set 
aside  to  give  place  to  one  with  less  equipment.  While  Mr. 
Fish  had  entertained  Grant  during  the  campaign  at  his 
home  in  New  York,  and  at  the  close  of  the  war  had  given 
a  liberal  donation  towards  a  fund  to  purchase  a  house  for 
the  General,  he  was  not  on  intimate  terms  with  the  new 
President;  nor  did  Grant,  when  he  invited  him  into  his 
cabinet,  as  he  afterwards  said,  fully  appreciate  the  great 
ability  of  Mr.  Fish. 

But  there  had  lately  been  no  opportunity  for  Mr.  Fish 
publicly  to  demonstrate  his  executive  qualifications.  His 
tireless  work  during  the  war  was  of  a  semi-public  nature, 
and  while  resulting  in  great  good,  was  not  generally  ex 
ploited.  As  Governor  of  New  York  he  had  displayed 

[49] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

executive  talent  of  no  mean  order;  but  some  twenty  years 
had  passed  since  he  had  held  that  office,  and  his  decision 
and  foresight,  then  so  generally  recognized  by  his  State, 
was  now  little  known  throughout  the  nation.  Yet  in  1869, 
Mr.  Fish  was  looked  upon  by  those  with  whom  he  came  in 
contact  as  a  gentleman  of  wide  experience,  in  whom  the 
capacities  of  the  organizer  were  happily  united  with  a  well- 
balanced  judgment  and  broad  culture.  As  chairman  of  the 
board  of  trustees  of  Columbia  College  and  as  one  of  the 
trustees  of  the  Astor  Library  he  was  intimately  in  touch 
with  educational  matters ;  as  President-general  of  the  Order 
of  the  Cincinnati,  and  as  President  of  the  New  York  Histor 
ical  Society,  he  was  closely  associated  with  men  who  did  not 
live  wholly  in  the  present,  but  took  pleasure  in  reviewing 
the  salient  events  of  the  past.  Such  was  the  man  who  after 
a  retirement  of  twelve  years  was  again  to  enter  the  public 
service,  and  to  reap  a  fame  commensurate  with  the  greatest 
of  our  Secretaries  of  State. 

But  a  word  is  now  necessary  as  to  how  the  appointment 
came  about.  Grant  had  been  unfortunate  in  the  selection 
of  some  of  his  official  advisers.  The  well-known  case  of 
A.  T.  Stewart  as  Secretary  of  the  Treasury  need  not  here  be 
reviewed.  It  is  said  that  the  President  had  chosen  James 
F.  Wilson,  of  Iowa,  for  the  position  of  Secretary  of  State, 
but  that  he  requested  that  gentleman  to  submit  to  an  interim 
appointment  for  a  few  days  only,  so  that  the  temporary 
appointee  might  go  to  Paris  as  our  representative  with 
added  prestige.  When  Mr.  Wilson  was  informed  that 
Elihu  B.  Washburne,  whom  Grant  had  so  honored,  had 
undertaken  to  make  appointments,  when  his  tenure  was 
only  to  be  nominal,  he  declined  to  accept  the  appointment. 
It  was  then  that  the  astonished  President  proffered  the 

[So] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

position  to  Mr.  Fish,  who  at  first  declined  it.  Dispatching 
General  Babcock  to  New  York  with  instructions  to  prevail 
upon  Mr.  Fish  to  reconsider  the  matter,  the  President  before 
Babcock's  return  sent  in  Mr.  Fish's  name  to  the  Senate, 
which  was  immediately  confirmed.  Finding  what  Presi 
dent  Grant  had  done,  and  not  wishing  to  embarrass  him 
further,  Mr.  Fish  consented  to  serve  with  the  reservation 
that  he  could  "withdraw  after  the  adjournment  of  Con 
gress,"  a  suggestion  which  was  contained  in  the  Presi 
dent's  letter  in  which  he  urged  Mr.  Fish  to  reconsider  the 
appointment. 

"Very  much  against  my  own  wishes,  and  after  a  very 
positive  refusal,"  writes  Mr.  Fish  to  Charles  Sumner  under 
date  of  March  13,  1869,  "I  am  going  to  Washington  to 
undertake  duties  for  which  I  have  little  taste  and  less 
fitness.  ...  I  make  this  sacrifice  on  the  most  earnest 
appeal  'not  to  allow  another  break,'  etc.  I  hesitated  long  to 
reverse  my  decision;  and  if  I  was  wrong  in  yielding,  God 
knows  that  I  did  it  reluctantly,  and  because  the  reasons 
presented  seemed  to  me  to  affect  high  interests."1 

The  public  regarded  the  appointment  of  Hamilton  Fish 
very  much  as  it  later  viewed  that  of  his  immediate  suc 
cessor,  William  M.  Evarts.  Both  men  were  loyal  Republi 
cans,  but  in  no  sense  wire  pullers  or  manipulators  of  party 
policies,  unfortunately  too  often  prerequisites  to  political 
promotion.  Yet  there  are  few,  if  any,  persons  who  stand 
for  efficiency  and  disinterested  service  as  the  prime  qualifica 
tions  for  public  officials  who  would  contend  that  either 
Fish  or  Evarts  were  less  valuable  Secretaries  because  they 
had  never  practised  the  so-called  arts  of  the  politician.  In 

1  Memoir  and  Letters  of  Charles  Sumner,  by  Edward  L.  Pierce, 
Vol.  IV,  p.  379- 


HAMILTON  FISH 

each  case  Presidents  Grant  and  Hayes  selected  their  Secre 
taries  of  State  because  they  had  discovered  in  them  qualities 
which  eminently  fitted  them  for  the  office ;  and  both  choices 
were  most  fortunate  selections. 

But  there  were  naturally  some  who  underrated  the  capa 
bility  of  Secretary  Fish,  and  this  is  pointed  out  to  show 
that  it  either  emanated  from  personal  malice,  or  else  from 
a  thorough  misconception  of  the  intellectual  resources 
which  Mr.  Fish  really  possessed.  Seward,  who  entertained 
John  Bigelow  at  his  home  at  Auburn,  soon  after  the  ap 
pointment  of  Mr.  Fish,  is  quoted  as  declaring  that  President 
Grant  "had  no  idea  of  a  foreign  policy  except  brute  force." 
In  the  same  conversation  Seward  voiced  the  opinion  that 
there  were  but  three  men  of  whom  he  knew  who  were 
qualified  to  hold  the  position  of  Secretary  of  State ;  namely, 
Charles  Sumner,  Charles  Francis  Adams,  and  himself ; 
that  he  was  the  only  person  who  was  able  to  make  an  analy 
sis  of  the  Alabama  correspondence  under  a  year,  and  that 
he  could  do  it  in  four  months.  "Fish,"  continued  Seward, 
"will  refer  everything  to  the  Attorney-General.  He  will  do 
nothing  himself;  he  cannot."2  "The  cabinet  is  not  strong, 
but  it  is  respectable,"  writes  Bigelow  to  Huntington,  March 
16,  1869.  "Whether  it  lasts  or  goes  to  pieces  depends  upon 
Grant's  purpose  in  selecting  it.  If  he  has  a  policy  and 
wanted  men  merely  for  instruments  to  put  it  into  operation, 
it  is  admirably  chosen.  If  he  wants  responsible  ministers  he 
has  not  got  them.  Hamilton  Fish  is  my  neighbor  in  the 
country — an  amiable  but  heavy  man,  who  at  the  bar  ranked 
as  a  moderate  attorney,  but  whose  name  I  suspect  does  not 
appear  in  the  books  of  reports  once  .  .  ."3 

2  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  by  Coolidge,  pp.  281-282. 

3  Retrospections  of  an  Active  Life,  Bigelow,  Vol.  IV,  p.  263. 

[52] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Secretary  Fish  entered  promptly  upon  the  work  of  his 
Department,  and  with  characteristic  zeal  confined  himself 
mostly  to  the  duties  which  this  involved.  Diligent  in  his 
own  work  he  required  his  subordinates  to  be  likewise.  Yet 
he  was  not  a  hard  taskmaster.  Listening  patiently  to  all 
grievances,  whether  supposed  or  real,  he  aimed  to  be  per 
fectly  impartial  in  his  decisions.  This  fairness  won  him  the 
confidence  and  loyalty  of  those  through  whom  he  directed 
the  affairs  of  the  Department,  and  thus  his  influence  was 
felt  perhaps  more  largely  than  is  usually  the  case;  for  the 
heads  of  departments  are  generally  inclined  to  limit  their 
personal  supervision  to  the  more  important  duties  of  their 
office,  leaving  the  details  to  be  worked  out  by  subordinates. 
Secretary  Fish  is  said  to  have  known  every  clerk  personally, 
and  to  have  been  acquainted  with  their  habits  and  abilities. 

This  careful  scrutiny  proved  fortunate  for  those  who 
merited  promotion,  when,  under  the  efficient  management  of 
the  Secretary,  the  Department  of  State  was  reorganized. 
Soon  after  Secretary  Fish  entered  the  cabinet  he  wanted  to 
effect  certain  changes  in  his  Department,  but  was  handi 
capped  at  first,  because  he  found  the  Congress  apathetic 
to  grant  the  desired  appropriations.  When  this  was  done, 
however,  he  caused  all  detached  and  unindexed  correspond 
ence  of  a  miscellaneous  nature  to  be  collected,  classified, 
indexed,  and  bound.  When  completed  there  were  over 
seven  hundred  volumes.  At  the  same  time  that  this  work 
was  being  perfected,  Mr.  Fish  introduced  for  the  first  time 
into  the  Department  a  general  system  of  indexing,  so  that 
for  years  clerks  have  been  able  to  locate  important  docu 
ments  with  convenience  and  dispatch. 

We  are  also  to  credit  Secretary  Fish  in  his  management 
of  the  Department  of  State  for  taking  the  initial  steps  in 

[S3] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

the  reform  of  the  Civil  Service.  Before  his  day  consulates 
were  accustomed  to  receive  their  appointments  on  the 
recommendation  of  Senators  or  Congressmen,  without,  it 
may  be  said,  of  especially  inquiring  into  their  knowledge  of 
the  subjects  with  which  they  would  have  to  deal.  Mr.  Fish 
had  long  felt  very  keenly  on  this  subject,  as  evidenced  in 
one  of  his  early  letters  to  Charles  Sumner,  in  which  he 
poured  forth  his  indignation  of  the  type  of  men  then  being 
sent  to  represent  our  country  at  foreign  courts.  He  never 
hesitated  to  condemn  the  course  of  a  public  official  when 
he  disapproved  of  it,  merely  because  that  course  emanated 
from  a  representative  of  the  party  to  which  he  was  affili 
ated  ;  and  he  always  had  adequate  reason  aside  from  party 
allegiance  to  defend  his  views.  Thus  feeling  as  he  did  in 
regard  to  the  fitness  of  applicants  for  diplomatic  posts,  it 
is  not  surprising  that  Secretary  Fish  established  a  rule 
whereby  all  applicants  for  consulates  were  required  to 
undergo  an  official  examination.  Such  an  innovation  not 
only  raised  the  tone  and  efficiency  of  the  consular  service, 
but  it  served  to  eliminate  hard  feelings  among  Congressmen 
and  Senators  when  their  favorites  were  denied  appointment ; 
for  when  shown  the  written  answers  they  could  not  hon 
estly  object  if  their  choices  had  failed  to  obtain  the  re 
quired  standard.  Of  course  in  some  cases  unworthy  for 
eign  appointments  were  made;  but  it  must  be  remembered 
that  the  appointing  power  rests  solely  with  the  President, 
with  the  consent  of  the  Senate;  and  although  Mr.  Fish 
endeavored  to  correct  many  abuses  which  through  custom 
had  grown  up  in  the  Department,  President  Grant  was  not 
always  amenable  to  the  Secretary's  suggestions. 

It  will  be  convenient  in  the  next  four  chapters  to  digress 
from  a  strict  chronological  order  and  to  follow  out  succes- 

[54] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

sively  some  of  the  great  foreign  problems  which  arose  in 
the  Department  of  State  during  the  incumbency  of  Secre 
tary  Fish,  for  they  require  coherency  of  treatment  to  be 
made  comprehensible.  It  only  remains  then  in  this  chapter 
to  deal  briefly  with  certain  other  matters  which  in  any  study 
of  Hamilton  Fish,  however  succinct,  must  not  be  omitted. 

Of  these,  his  position  on  the  subject  of  expatriation  is 
one  of  the  most  noteworthy,  for  it  resulted  in  establishing 
a  new  canon,  to  use  the  words  of  another,  of  international 
law.  It  has,  moreover,  been  conceded  to  be  the  correct  prin 
ciple  in  such  cases,  and  has  continued  to  be  applied  ever 
since  Mr.  Fish  put  it  into  practice.  He  maintained  that 
the  naturalized  citizen,  having  renounced  his  native  citizen 
ship,  was  under  the  same  obligation  to  perform  the  duties 
of  citizenship  in  the  land  of  his  adoption  as  natives;  and 
that  all  the  powers  of  the  Government  which  are  extended 
to  natives  in  the  defense  of  their  rights  should  also  as  fully 
and  as  vigorously  be  exerted  in  the  case  of  those  upon 
whom  the  privilege  of  citizenship  had  been  conferred.  But 
when  foreign-born  citizens  sought  naturalization  solely  for 
the  purpose  of  exchanging  nationality  and  eventually  re 
turning  to  their  land,  there  to  reside  without  performing 
the  duties  of  citizenship  in  the  land  of  their  adoption,  they 
were  not  worthy,  nor  should  they  receive  the  protection  due 
alike  to  naturalized  or  native  citizens.  The  Franco-German 
War  gave  Secretary  Fish  the  opportunity  of  freely  apply 
ing  this  principle  of  international  law ;  and  it  is  said  that, 
holding  such  views,  he  never  permitted  a  naturalized  citizen 
to  be  appointed  as  consul  in  the  land  of  his  birth. 

The  subject  of  extradition  also  engaged  the  attention  of 
Secretary  Fish.  In  the  celebrated  case  of  Winslow,  under 
the  Webster-Ashburton  treaty,  he  took  the  ground  that,  in 

[55] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

the  absence  of  a  clear  conventional  prohibition,  a  person 
surrendered  could  be  tried  for  an  offense  technically  differ 
ent  from  that  for  which  he  had  been  surrendered.  Great 
Britain  took  exception  to  this  position,  notwithstanding 
that  the  Ashburton  treaty  contained  no  specific  stipula 
tion  forbidding  the  trial  of  surrendered  criminals  on  charges 
other  than  the  offense  on  which  extradition  was  obtained. 
The  difference  caused  a  temporary  suspension  of  the  execu 
tion  of  the  treaty.  After  the  lapse  of  some  months,  how 
ever,  extradition  between  the  two  countries  was  resumed. 

As  Secretary  of  State,  Mr.  Fish  endeavored  to  induce 
Great  Britain  to  acquiesce  in  the  repeal  of  the  Clayton- 
Bulwer  treaty,  by  the  terms  of  which  the  two  countries 
agreed  not  individually  to  "obtain  or  maintain  for  itself  any 
exclusive  control  over  the  said  (Panama)  ship  canal;  nor 
ever  erect  or  maintain  any  fortifications  commanding  the 
same,  or  exercise  any  dominion  over  any  part  of  Central 
America."  This  agreement  became  effective  in  1850,  but 
now,  for  obvious  reasons,  the  administration  desired  to 
bring  about  the  abrogation  of  the  treaty.  It  was  not  suc 
cessful,  however,  nor  were  later  administrations  until  Sec 
retary  Hay  brought  the  issue  to  a  successful  termination. 

During  the  eight  years  in  which  Mr.  Fish  held  the  State 
portfolio,  he  demonstrated  in  sundry  ways  the  splendid 
equipment  with  which  he  was  endowed  to  perform  the 
duties  which  the  great  office  entailed.  His  greatness  seemed 
to  lie  in  the  resourcefulness  of  his  reserve  strength.  In 
deed,  he  appears  never  to  have  drained  his  storehouse  of 
ways  and  means  in  the  development  and  settlement  of  a 
foreign  issue ;  and  this  reserved  powerhouse,  from  which  he 
was  able  to  draw  almost  inexhaustibly,  made  him  emerge 
victoriously,  however  long  drawn  out  the  controversy  may 

[56] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

have  been.  This  reveals  yet  another  side  of  his  character 
as  a  cabinet  officer;  namely,  patience.  He  never  allowed 
himself  to  become  perturbed,  no  matter  how  severely  his 
feelings  were  strained.  Even  when  unjustly  assailed,  by 
persons  whose  schemes  he  had  thwarted,  he  held  himself 
well  in  hand,  knowing  that  such  attacks  would  fall  of  their 
own  weight,  and  that  history  would  vindicate  his  course. 

Secretary  Fish  also  was  blessed  with  the  faculty  of 
concentration,  the  importance  and  value  of  which  are 
so  fully  appreciated  by  all  discerning  men.  This  power 
of  concentration  was  conspicuously  shown  in  Secretary 
Fish's  dispatches,  than  which  there  are  no  more  able 
State  papers  in  the  archives  of  the  Government.  He 
first  gathered  all  fragments  of  information  in  relation  to  a 
given  subject,  grouped  them  in  convenient  shape,  and  then 
made  use  of  the  parts  most  essential  to  a  logical  and  lucid 
unfolding  of  the  position  of  his  government.  Thus  aiming 
directly  at  the  point  to  be  reached  he  stated  his  views  with 
force  and  directness.  The  fundamental  principle  upon 
which  he  worked  was  integrity,  believing,  as  he  did,  that 
diplomatic  intercourse  ought  to  be  characterized  by  honesty 
of  purpose,  clearness  of  perception,  and  fairness  of  method. 
His  generalizations  were  comprehensive  and  accurate;  his 
logic,  convincing.  When  occasion  required  a  vigorous 
statement,  as  in  the  case  of  the  Virginius,  vigorously  it 
was  made.  If  unforeseen  events  tended  to  excite  the  De 
partment,  there  was  found  in  the  Secretary  of  State  a  tower 
of  strength,  a  judgment  that  was  quick  to  perceive  the  right 
course  to  be  pursued. 

That  Hamilton  Fish  was  the  bulwark  of  the  Grant  ad 
ministration  is  not  to  be  denied.  Such  men  as  Hoar  and 
Cox  realized  this  from  the  beginning,  and  freely  expressed 

[57] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

their  confidence  in  Mr.  Fish's  statesmanship.  When  the 
Secretary  pressed  Grant  to  accept  his  resignation,  both 
Hoar  and  Cox  urged  him  to  remain,  advice  which  he  fortu 
nately  accepted.  At  the  conclusion  of  his  term  of  office  he 
was  almost  unanimously  recognized  as  one  of  the  ablest 
statesmen  of  his  day.  Countless  testimonals  could  be  cited 
which  would  show  the  regard  in  which  he  was  held  by 
his  contemporaries.  "I  esteem  it  one  of  the  chief  privileges 
of  my  public  life,"  wrote  Senator  Anthony,  "that  I  have 
known  you  so  well,  and  have  been  admitted  to  a  share  of  the 
confidence  of  one  who  has  rendered  such  illustrious  services 
to  the  country,  to  international  peace,  and  to  civilization." 
Others  were  as  profuse  in  their  praises  of  his  record. 
But  no  one  knew  better  than  the  President  how  untiring 
had  been  his  devotion  to  the  public  service,  nor  the  extent 
of  his  influence,  which  Grant  generously  acknowledged  after 
his  retirement  from  the  Presidency.  "I  have  been  prob 
ably  credited,"  said  General  Grant,  "with  having  had  a 
variety  of  friends  who  are  supposed  to  have  influenced  me 
more  or  less  during  my  political  career.  The  three,  or  I 
may  say  four,  friends  on  whose  judgment  I  relied  with 
the  utmost  confidence  were,  first,  and  above  all,  Hamilton 
Fish,  Senator  Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  Mr.  Boutwell,  of 
Massachusetts,  and  Admiral  Ammen,  of  the  navy.  I  had 
multitudes  of  other  friends,  of  course,  of  whose  friendship 
I  was  proud  and  rejoice,  but  when  people  speak  of  those 
whose  counsels  I  sought  and  accepted,  they  were  those 
four  men  whom  I  have  mentioned,  and,  above  all,  Hamilton 
Fish." 


[58] 


CHAPTER  VI 

THE   TREATY   OF    WASHINGTON 

A  THE  very  inception  of  the  Grant  administration 
Secretary  Fish  was  confronted  with  a  foreign  prob 
lem,  the  origin  of  which  dated  back  to  the  early 
days  of  the  Civil  War,  when  Great  Britain  recognized,  by 
the  Queen's  proclamation  of  May  13,  1861,  the  belligerency 
of  the  Confederate  States.  While  international  law  justi 
fied  such  a  course,  there  were  circumstances  that  gave  to 
the  move  the  appearance  of  haste.  The  ultimate  source  of 
disagreement  between  the  two  nations,  however,  lay  not  so 
much  in  the  fact  that  such  a  proclamation  was  issued,  as  in 
the  failure  of  Great  Britain  to  observe  consistently  the 
rules  of  neutrality  which,  by  virtue  of  the  proclamation, 
she  was  under  obligation  to  respect.  From  this  cause 
there  arose  the  serious  differences  growing  out  of  the 
depredations  on  American  commerce  by  the  Alabama  and 
other  Confederate  cruisers  fitted  out  in  British  jurisdiction. 
In  these  days  of  close  comradeship  and  manifest  destiny 
between  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain,  it  is  indeed 
hard  to  realize  that  during,  and  for  some  time  following, 
our  Civil  War,  the  relations  between  these  two  great  Eng 
lish-speaking  nations  were  severely  strained.  But  such  is 
the  fact.  A  recital  here,  however,  is  necessary  only  as  it 
affects  the  circumstances  leading  up  to,  and  culminating  in, 
the  series  of  negotiations  with  the  Government  of  Great 
Britain,  the  fruit  of  which  was  the  Treaty  of  Washington, 
and  the  Geneva  Arbitration. 

[59] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

The  facts  were  indeed  undeniable.  From  almost  the 
beginning  of  the  war,  the  Confederate  Government  utilized 
the  waters  of  the  Mersey,  to  borrow  the  words  of  the  Amer 
ican  case  at  Geneva,  as  her  "dockyard  and  arsenal."  In 
English  shipyards  vessels  were  built,  which  later  escaped 
from  her  ports,  and  preyed  on  the  commerce  of  the  northern 
States.  At  first  through  either  the  inadequacy  of  her  laws, 
or  the  neglect  of  her  officials,  the  British  Government  re 
frained  from  interfering,  in  spite  of  repeated  protests  by 
the  United  States,  officially  made  through  the  American 
minister,  Charles  Francis  Adams.  By  the  construction 
then  given  to  the  Foreign  Enlistment  Act  of  1819,  it  was 
lawful  to  build  a  ship  of  war  in  British  waters,  provided  it 
were  not  wholly  equipped  there  for  hostile  purposes.  In 
other  words,  both  must  be  combined  in  order  to  constitute 
an  offense.  It  was  further  stated  that  inasmuch  as  the 
mere  building  of  ships  was  commerce  carried  on  between 
British  merchants  and  manufacturers,  and  representatives 
of  the  Confederate  Government,  it  was  an  issue  for  the 
local  authorities,  not  one  for  the  Government,  to  explain. 
But  whether  the  responsibility  was  shifted  to  other  shoul 
ders,  or  not,  the  English  Government  had  taken  her  stand ; 
for  in  the  language  of  her  Foreign  Secretary,  Lord  Russell 
— "Her  Majesty's  Government  entirely  disclaimed  all  re 
sponsibility  for  any  acts  of  the  Alabama"1 

In  this  connection,  there  seems  to  have  been  no  disposi 
tion  among  British  statesmen  in  power  to  recognize  in  the 
situation  an  obligation,  because  of  the  Queen's  proclama 
tion  of  neutrality,  which  transcended  any  existing  Act  of 
Parliament,  and  which  required  the  Government  to  amend 

1  Russell  to  Adams,  March  9,  1863.  Geneva  Arbitration :  Corre 
spondence,  etc.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  122. 

[60] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

any  statute  failing  to  remove  any  cause,  however  remote, 
that  tended  to  place  the  Government  of  Great  Britain  in 
either  an  unfavorable  or  inconsistent  light.  While  the 
escape  of  the  Alabama  was  at  the  time  defended,  Lord  Rus 
sell  in  his  "Recollections  and  Suggestions"2  graciously 
enough  admits  the  error,  and  lays  it  at  his  own  door. 

As  was  natural,  there  was  great  consternation  among  the 
people  of  the  North  over  the  loss  of  their  commerce.  But 
in  point  of  fact  there  was  little  concern  in  England  whether 
or  not  northern  opinion  was  appeased.  Indeed,  the  vortex 
of  English  sentiment  at  the  outset  of  the  war,  especially  in 
high  governmental  circles,  with  but  few  exceptions,  was 
inimical  to  the  North.  Gladstone's  well-remembered  words 
that  "Jefferson  Davis  had  made  an  army,  was  making  a 
navy,  and  had  made  a  nation" ;  and  uwe  may  anticipate 
with  certainty  the  success  of  the  southern  States  so  far 
as  regard  their  separation  from  the  North",3  sunk  deeply 
into  the  minds  of  the  northern  people,  and  became,  with 
the  language  of  other  equally  biased  Englishmen,  a  source 
of  bitterness,  the  extent  of  which  was  not  easy  to  assuage. 

But  this  spirit  of  antagonism  was  not  the  determining 
factor  which  led  the  United  States  to  seek  redress :  it  lay 
in  the  great  loss  of  the  North's  ocean  trade.  So  as  the 
national  and  individual  claims  increased  in  number,  they 
ultimately  developed  into  an  uncompromising  legacy  of 
the  war,  the  settlement  of  which  required  time,  the  rise  of 
extraneous  events,  and  a  leadership  of  no  mean  insight  and 
firmness. 

Before  the  advent  of  Hamilton  Fish,  the  Department  of 
State  had  endeavored  to  bring  the  controversy  with  Great 

2  Recollections  and  Suggestions,  p.  407. 

3  Speech  at  Newcastle,  October  7,  1862. 

[61] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Britain  to  an  end.  The  overtures,  however,  failed  of  frui 
tion.  Because  in  the  view  of  British  authority  England 
had  given  no  cause  for  the  United  States  to  seek  repara 
tion,  inasmuch  as  "no  armed  vessel  departed  during  the 
war  from  a  British  port  to  cruise  against  the  commerce 
of  the  United  States";4  and  therefore  all  obligations  of 
international  law,  as  legally  binding  upon  a  neutral  power, 
had  been  observed. 

Secretary  Seward,  who  was  naturally  zealous  for  an 
adjustment  between  the  two  governments  to  be  con 
summated  during  his  term  of  office,  sought  near  the 
close  of  the  Johnson  administration  to  effect  a  settle 
ment  of  the  British  question.  In  July,  1868,  Charles 
Francis  Adams  was  succeeded  at  the  British  court  by 
Reverdy  Johnson,  of  Maryland,  who,  backed  by  Seward, 
at  once  entered  upon  negotiations  concerning  the 
so-called  Alabama  claims.  A  significant  feature  of  these 
negotiations  was  the  silence  in  regard  to  Seward's  former 
attitude,  which  had  laid  stress  on  the  impropriety  and  un 
friendliness  of  the  Queen's  proclamation  of  1861.  With 
this  ground  yielded,  or  more  accurately  speaking,  ignored, 
the  chief  cause  of  irritation,  to  the  minds  of  the  officials, 
was  removed ;  and  thus  the  outlook  for  an  agreement  greatly 
enhanced. 

Great  Britain,  moreover,  was  now  anxious  to  come  to  an 
understanding  with  the  United  States ;  and  for  very  obvious 
reasons.  Conditions  on  the  continent  of  Europe  were  in 
a  liquid  state;  they  were  not  fixed.  Count  Bismarck's 
policy  was  one  which  England  could  not  ignore;  nor  was 
she  now  disposed  to  allow,  if  she  could  help  it,  the  prec- 

4  Geneva  Arbitration :  Correspondence,  etc.,  Vol.  Ill,  p.  625. 

[62] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

edent  created  by  the  Alabama  circumstance  to  be  repeated 
by  America  in  case  of  Great  Britain  being  involved  in  war. 
Then  further  a  new  ministry  had  recently  assumed  the  reins 
of  government.  Gladstone  had  succeeded  Lord  Russell  as 
Premier;  and  Lord  Clarendon  had  become  Foreign  Secre 
tary.  So  now  having  by  complete  silence  recognized  Lord 
Stanley's  argument  in  reference  to  the  recognition  of  Con 
federate  belligerency,  in  which  Seward  concurred,  a  con 
vention  was  concluded  on  January  14,  1869,  when  it  re 
ceived  the  signatures  of  its  chief  sponsors,  Reverdy  John 
son,  and  Lord  Clarendon,  and  became  known  as  the  John 
son-Clarendon  Convention. 

It  was  not  received  in  the  United  States  as  its 
framers  and  sponsors  had  anticipated.  A  year  seems  to 
have  worked  a  radical  change  in  American  sentiment.  This 
was  very  markedly  shown  when  the  convention  was  first 
considered  by  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  of  the 
Senate,  when  its  entire  membership  went  on  record  as 
opposed  to  its  ratification ;  the  reason  being  primarily  be 
cause  it  failed  to  contain  adequate  provision  for  the  repara 
tion  of  the  wrongs  which  the  North  had  sustained.  Then, 
too,  sympathy  for  Irish  home  rule  was  at  the  time  growing 
in  the  United  States,  which  did  not  tend  to  abate  anti- 
English  feeling.  Resentment  also  was  felt  for  the  manner 
in  which  Johnson  had  brought  about  the  convention.  Then, 
also,  in  the  meantime,  a  presidential  election  had  occurred ; 
and,  as  Seward  wrote  to  Johnson,  "The  confused  light  of 
an  incoming  administration  was  spreading  itself  over  the 
country,  rendering  the  consideration  of  political  subjects 
irksome,  if  not  inconvenient."5 

6  The  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  p.  94. 

[63] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

At  the  request  of  the  President-elect,  the  consideration 
of  the  convention  was  not  taken  up  formally  by  the  Senate 
until  the  new  administration  had  taken  office.  It  was,  there 
fore,  not  acted  upon  until  early  in  April,  1869,  when  the 
Senate,  sitting  in  executive  session,  rejected  it  almost 
unanimously.  That  part  of  the  debate  which  was  destined 
to  evoke  the  most  far-reaching  consequence  was  the  elabo 
rate,  and  indeed  extravagant  speech  of  Senator  Sumner, 
the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations,  which 
had  the  convention  in  charge.  It  is  very  doubtful  if  the 
speech  of  Sumner  changed  many  votes  in  the  Senate,  as 
the  defeat  of  the  convention  was  a  foregone  conclusion.  It 
did,  however,  greatly  tend  to  deter  the  prospects  of  a  rapid 
settlement  of  the  differences  at  issue.  By  formal  vote  of 
the  Senate,  the  speech  was  allowed  to  be  published,  and  so 
became  a  baleful  influence  in  renewing  negotiations.  By 
way  of  impressing  his  hearers  of  the  injury  that  England 
had  inflicted  upon  the  United  States,  Sumner  attempted  to 
state  our  individual  and  national  losses.  He  figured  that 
the  former  "due  to  the  foraging  of  the  Alabama"  were 
$15,000,000;  while  the  latter,  caused  by  the  subversion  of 
American  commerce,  and  other  expenditures  pertaining 
thereto  amounted  to  around  $110,000,000.  But  this,  he 
added,  "Is  only  an  item  in  our  bill." 

Senator  Sumner  then  proceeded  to  lay  the  prolongation 
of  the  war  to  England's  door,  and  said  that,  "If  the  case 
against  England  is  strong,  and  if  our  claims  are  unprec 
edented  in  magnitude,  it  is  only  because  the  conduct  of 
this  power  at  a  trying  period  was  most  unfriendly,  and  the 
injurious  consequences  of  this  conduct  were  on  a  scale 
corresponding  to  the  theatre  of  action."  Submitting  that 
the  cost  of  the  Civil  War  was  over  $4,000,000,000,  and  that 

[64] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

because  of  British  intervention  it  was  doubled  in  length,  he 
figured  that  England  was  liable  in  money  for  one-half  of 
the  total  war  cost,  or  $2,000,000,000,  thus  estimating  our 
entire  bill  against  Great  Britain  of  about  $2,125,000,000.  He 
followed  this  up  by  averring  that  "whatever  may  be  the 
final  settlement  of  these  great  accounts,  such  must  be  the 
judgment  in  any  chancery  which  consults  the  simple  equity 
of  the  case."6 

It  has  been  contended  that  Sumner  was  merely  stating 
the  extent  to  which  England  had  wronged  the  United  States 
by  her  sympathy  for  the  Southern  cause;  that  it  was  not 
his  intention  of  either  collecting  such  an  enormous  sum,  or 
of  bringing  the  country  to  the  verge  of  war  to  enforce  its 
payment.  However  this  may  be,  he  went  on  record  at 
about  the  same  time  by  saying  that  "how  the  case  may  be 
settled,  whether  by  money  more  or  less,  by  territorial  com 
pensation,  by  apology,  or  by  an  amendment  of  the  law  of 
nations,  is  still  an  open  question;  all  may  be  combined."7 

To  the  world  at  large,  the  vote  of  the  Senate,  and  Sum- 
ner's  speech  could  not,  therefore,  be  very  well  disassociated. 
Yet  as  Secretary  Fish  wrote  in  a  private  letter  to  Mr.  S.  B. 
Ruggles,  of  New  York,8  "The  fact  is,  many  senators  dis 
sented  from  the  (Sumner's)  argument,  while  agreeing  in 
the  conclusion."  This  also  was  the  view  of  Senator 
Edmunds,  of  Vermont,  and  others  who  expressed  an  opin 
ion  on  the  subject.  From  the  first  Secretary  Fish  was  dis 
posed  to  think  Senator  Sumner  had  stated  his  case  too 
strongly,  that  the  hypothesis  upon  which  he  based  his  con- 

«  Charles  Sumner's  Works,  Vol.  XIII,  pp.  77,  83,  86,  90. 

7  Sumner   to   Lieber,   May  30,   1869.     Pierce :    Sumner   Vol.   IV, 
p.  388. 

8  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  Appendix  C,  pp.  207-208. 

[6s] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

elusions  was  incapable  of  being  defended.  He  had  always 
regretted  the  British  proclamation  of  May,  1861,  but  had 
contended  it  was  "subject  of  complaint,  only  as  leading  to, 
as  characterized  by,  and  authorizing  in  its  execution  and 
enforcement  the  fitting  out  of  the  Alabama,  etc.,  .  .  .  and 
as  leading  to  the  moral  support  given  in  England  to  the 
Rebel  cause."  Other  events  rapidly  ensued,  which  we  will 
consider  later,  that  led  Secretary  Fish  to  declare  within 
a  week  of  the  rejection  of  the  convention  by  the  Senate 
that  "Whenever  negotiations  are  resumed,  the  atmosphere 
and  the  surroundings  of  this  side  of  the  water  are  more 
favorable  to  a  proper  solution  of  the  question  than  the 
dinner-tables  and  the  public  banquetings  of  England."9  So 
intense  was  the  feeling  on  both  sides  that  the  respective 
governments  deemed  it  prudent  to  defer,  for  a  time  at  least, 
negotiations  upon  the  subject. 

But  however  tense  the  feeling  and  unopportune  the  pres 
ent  may  have  been  for  a  renewal  of  negotiations,  much 
intervened,  in  the  interim,  to  pave  the  way  for  a  complete 
understanding  between  the  two  governments  within  a  com 
paratively  short  time.  At  the  solicitation  of  Sumner, 
J.  Lothrop  Motley  had  been  appointed  to  the  English  mis 
sion,  and  after  his  confirmation  had  with  the  sanction  of 
Secretary  Fish  prepared  a  memorandum  which  contained 
an  outline  upon  which  was  to  be  based  his  instructions.  It 
mirrored  Sumner's  views  so  clearly  as  to  suggest  that  he 
had  inspired  it.  The  Secretary  it  seems  laid  it  away  in 
a  drawer,  and  paid  only  a  passing  comment  on  it  to  Sum 
ner,  in  which  the  latter  "partially,  if  not  wholly,  joined";10 
a  suggestion  of  the  divergence  of  opinion  between  the  Sec- 

9  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  p.  112. 

10  Pierce :  Sumner,  Vol.  IV,  p.  404. 

[66] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

retary  and  the  Senator  concerning  the  concession  of  bel 
ligerent  rights.  Secretary  Fish  took  his  time  in  the  prepara 
tion  of  Mr.  Motley's  instructions;  and  for  very  obvious 
reasons.  Another  question  of  foreign  import  was  just  then 
in  abeyance;  and  until  the  administration's  policy  towards 
the  Cuban  Rebellion  was  definitely  determined,  Secretary 
Fish  was  inclined  to  move  with  care  in  regard  to  the  Eng 
lish  question,  lest  he  find  himself  in  an  unexplainable  posi 
tion.  Thus  it  was  plain  that  the  rule  about  to  be  applied 
to  Great  Britain  in  the  matter  of  the  Queen's  proclamation 
of  1861  must  not  contradict  a  like  position  which  the  United 
States  might  think  wise  to  take  in  regard  to  Spain.  It  was 
a  wise  move  in  statesmanship,  and  Secretary  Fish  seems  to 
have  been  the  guiding  spirit  of  this  policy. 

So  when  the  final  instructions  to  Motley  were  ready  they 
contained  no  such  phrases  as  a  wrong  ''immense  and  in 
finite,"  or  "ill-omened"  and  "fatal"  proclamation,  the  very 
issuance  of  which  "had  opened  the  flood-gates  to  infinite 
woes."  Instead,  we  find  Secretary  Fish,  with  the  Cuban 
problem  probably  in  mind,  declaring  that  the  President 
recognized  "the  right  of  every  power,  when  a  civil  conflict 
has  arisen  within  another  State,  and  has  attained  a  suffi 
cient  complexity,  magnitude  and  completeness,  to  define  its 
own  relations  and  those  of  its  citizens  and  subjects  towards 
the  parties  to  the  conflict,  so  far  as  their  rights  and  inter 
ests  are  necessarily  affected  by  the  conflict."  After  some 
well  guarded  expressions,  the  much  discussed  proclama 
tion  was  referred  to  only  as  indicating  "the  beginning  and 
the  animus  of  that  course  of  conduct  which  resulted  so 
disastrously  to  the  United  States."  The  Secretary  also 
declared  that  in  spite  of  the  failure  of  the  Johnson-Claren 
don  Convention  the  Government  of  the  United  States  did 

[67] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

not  reliquish  confidence  of  "an  early,  satisfactory,  and 
friendly  settlement  of  the  questions  depending  between 
the  two  governments,"  and  expressed  the  hope  of  the  Presi 
dent  that  the  suspension  of  negotiations  would  be  viewed  by 
Her  Majesty's  Government  in  the  same  light  as  it  was  by 
him,  "as  wholly  in  the  interest  of,  and  solely  with  the  view 
to,  an  early  and  friendly  settlement."11 

Sumner  appears  to  have  been  contented,  at  least  out 
wardly,  with  the  instructions,  though  the  original  draft, 
which  he  succeeded  in  having  modified,  was  more  explicit 
on  what  one  writer  has  called  "the  Proclamation  Legend." 
The  entire  tenor  of  the  document,  however,  was  in  keeping 
with  the  well-defined  views  of  Secretary  Fish,  expressed  in 
a  letter  to  a  friend,  in  September,  1869.  "The  two  English- 
speaking  progressive  liberal  governments  of  the  world,"  he 
said,  "should  not,  must  not,  be  divided — better  let  this  ques 
tion  rest  for  some  years  even  (if  that  be  necessary)  than 
risk  failure  in  another  attempt  at  settlement.  I  do  not  say 
this  because  I  wish  to  postpone  a  settlement — on  the  con 
trary,  I  should  esteem  it  the  greatest  glory,  and  happiness 
of  my  life,  if  it  could  be  settled  while  I  remain  in  official 
position;  and  I  should  esteem  it  the  greatest  benefit  to  my 
country  to  bring  it  to  an  early  settlement.  ...  I  want  to 
have  the  question  settled.  I  would  not,  if  I  could,  impose 
any  humiliating  condition  on  Great  Britain.  I  would  not 
be  a  party  to  anything  that  proposes  to  threaten  her.  I 
believe  that  she  is  great  enough  to  be  just;  and  I  trust  that 
she  is  wise  enough  to  maintain  her  own  greatness.  No 
greatness  is  inconsistent  with  some  errors.  Mr.  Bright 
thinks  she  was  drawn  into  errors — so  do  we.  If  she  can  be 
brought  to  think  so,  it  will  not  be  necessary  for  her  to  say 

11  Davis:  Mr.  Fish  and  the  Alabama  Claims,  pp.  35,  36. 

[68] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

so — at  least  not  to  say  it  very  loudly.  It  may  be  said  by 
a  definition  of  what  shall  be  Maritime  International  Law  in 
the  future,  and  a  few  kind  words.  She  will  want  in  the 
future  what  we  have  claimed.  Thus  she  will  be  benefited 
—we  satisfied."12 

In  due  course  Mr.  Motley  proceeded  to  London,  where 
with  his  prestige  as  an  historian  and  writer  he  became  the 
social  lion  of  the  day.  He  seems,  however,  to  have  still 
been  under  the  influence  of  Sumner;  for  instead  of  adher 
ing  strictly  to  his  instructions,  he  dwelt  in  his  first  inter 
view  with  Lord  Clarendon  upon  the  Queen's  proclamation 
as  "the  fountain  head  of  the  disasters  which  had  been 
caused  to  the  American  people,  both  individually  and  col 
lectively."  When  the  report  of  this  interview  reached 
Washington  the  President  is  said  to  have  been  very  angry 
over  the  failure  of  Motley  to  respect  his  instructions ;  and 
even  told  Secretary  Fish  to  dismiss  the  new  Minister  at 
once,  a  move  which  the  Secretary  then  discouraged.  The 
alternative,  however,  was  followed;  that  of  relieving  Mr. 
Motley  from  dealing  further  with  the  British  question. 
The  Secretary  now  had  the  matter  in  his  own  hands.  This 
he  had  desired  soon  after  the  defeat  of  the  Johnson- 
Clarendon  Convention.  The  subsequent  dismissal  of  Mot 
ley,  however  dramatic  of  itself,  did  not  affect  the  substance 
of  the  negotiations  with  England,  the  renewal  of  which 
were  progressing  rapidly  before  it  took  place.  In  so  suc 
cinct  a  monograph  space  will  not  permit  of  dilating  in 
detail  all  the  circumstances  of  this  or  other  events  con 
nected  with  this  important  international  controversy.  Suf 
fice  it  to  say,  however,  of  Motley's  removal,  that  it  was 
wholly  Grant's.  Secretary  Fish  regretted  it,  and  for  a  time 

12  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  pp.  125-126. 

[69] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

succeeded  in  delaying  it;  and  when  the  final  storm  broke, 
the  Secretary  put  himself  on  record  in  a  letter  to  Motley, 
in  which  he  indicated  as  plainly  as  such  a  correspondence 
permitted,  how  painful  was  the  task  of  requesting  his 
resignation. 

But  we  have  a  bit  anticipated  the  event :  in  the  meantime, 
through  the  initiative  of  Caleb  Gushing,  an  interview  be 
tween  Secretary  Fish  and  Sir  John  Rose,  a  Scotchman  by 
birth,  then  prominent  in  public  life  in  Canada,  was  arranged. 
It  is  uncertain  whether  or  not  Rose  was  the  authorized 
agent  of  Great  Britain;  but,  zealous  of  having  the  two 
nations  come  to  an  amiable  understanding  in  regard  to  the 
so-called  British  question,  he  suggested  to  Mr.  Gushing, 
with  whom  he  was  at  the  time  associated — the  one  serving 
as  British  Commissioner,  the  other  as  counsel  before  the 
joint  tribunal  which  arbitrated  the  claims  of  the  Hudson's 
Bay  and  Puget  Sound  companies  under  the  treaty  of 

1863 ,  that  he  might  be  of  some  aid  in  bringing  the 

matter  to  a  state  whereby  negotiations  of  a  new  nature 
might  be  resumed.  On  July  9,  1869,  or  soon  after  Motley's 
first  interview  with  Lord  Clarendon,  in  which  he  had  dis 
paraged  the  prospects  of  a  prompt  settlement  of  the  ques 
tions  at  issue,  Secretary  Fish  and  Sir  John  Rose,  in  the 
former's  home  in  Washington  considered  at  dinner  some  of 
the  details  along  the  lines  of  which  an  effective  settlement 
could  be  consummated.  Secretary  Fish  impressed  upon 
his  caller  the  necessity  of  "some  kind  expression  of  regret" 
being  duly  given  on  the  part  of  Great  Britain,  owing  to 
the  course  she  had  taken  during  the  Civil  War;  and  with 
the  exchange  of  other  views  clearly  in  mind,  Mr.  Rose  left 
almost  immediately  after  the  interview  for  England. 

During  the  summer  and  autumn  little  progress  towards 

[70] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

a  basis  of  agreement  between  the  two  countries  was  made ; 
yet  Fish  and  Rose  kept  each  other  advised  as  to  current 
opinion  in  their  respective  countries.  In  one  such  com 
munication  Rose  had  written:  "I  have  had  conversations 
in  more  than  one  quarter — which  you  will  readily  under 
stand  without  my  naming  them,  and  have  conveyed  MY 
OWN  BELIEF,  that  a  kindly  word,  or  an  expression  of 
regret,  such  as  would  not  involve  an  acknowledgment  of 
wrong,  was  likely  to  be  more  potential  than  the  most  irref 
ragable  reasoning  on  principles  of  international  law.  .  .  . 
Is  your  representative  here  [Motley]  a  gentleman  of  the 
most  conciliatory  spirit?  .  .  .  Does  he  not — perhaps  natu 
rally — let  the  fear  of  imitating  his  predecessor  influence 
his  course  so  as  to  make  his  initiative  hardly  as  much  char 
acterized  by  consideration  for  the  sensibilities  of  the  peo 
ple  of  this  country,  as  of  his  own?  ...  I  think  I  under 
stood  you  to  say,  that  you  thought  negotiations  would  be 
more  likely  to  be  attended  with  satisfactory  results,  if  they 
were  transferred  to,  and  were  concluded  at,  Washington; 
because  you  could  from  time  to  time  communicate  con 
fidentially  with  leading  Senators,  and  know  how  far  you 
could  carry  that  body  with  you.  .  .  .  But  again  is  your 
representative  of  that  mind? — and  how  is  it  to  be  brought 
about?  By  a  new,  or  a  special  envoy — as  you  spoke  of — or 
quietly  through  Mr.  Thornton?"13 

Secretary  Fish  in  reply  wrote :  "Your  questions  respect 
ing  our  Minister,  I  fear  may  have  been  justified  by  some 
indiscretion  of  expression,  or  of  manner,  but  I  hope  only 
indiscretions  of  that  nature.  Intimations  of  such  had 
reached  me.  I  have  reason  to  hope  that  if  there  have  been 
such  manifestations,  they  may  not  recur.  Whatever  there 

13  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  p.  127. 


HAMILTON  FISH 

may  have  appeared,  I  cannot  doubt  his  desire  to  aid  in 
bringing  the  two  governments  into  perfect  accord.  .  .  . 
I  have  the  highest  regard  for  Mr.  Thornton,  and  find  him 
in  all  my  intercourse,  courteous,  frank,  and  true.  A  gentle 
man  with  whom  I  deal  and  treat  with  the  most  unreserved 
confidence.  He  had,  however,  given  offense  to  Mr.  Sum- 
ner  (chairman  of  the  Senate  Committee  on  Foreign  Rela 
tions),  whose  position  with  reference  to  any  future  nego 
tiation  you  understand.  I  chanced  to  know  that  Mr. 
Sumner  feels  deeply  aggrieved  by  some  things  which  Mr. 
Thornton  has  written  home,  and  although  he  would  not  con 
sciously  allow  a  personal  grief  of  that  nature  to  prejudice 
his  action  in  an  official  intercourse  with  the  representative 
of  a  State,  he  might  unconsciously  be  led  to  criticism  un 
favorable  to  positions  which  would  be  viewed  differently, 
if  occupied  by  some  other  person.  ...  I  am  very  decidedly 
of  opinion  that  whenever  negotiations  are  to  be  renewed, 
they  would  be  more  likely  to  result  favorably  here  than 
in  London.  I  have  so  instructed  Mr.  Motley  to  say,  if  he 
be  questioned  on  the  subject."1* 

At  the  time  of  these  letters  Sumner  and  Fish  were  still 
on  friendly  terms.  The  latter,  therefore,  was  particular  to 
inform  Sumner  of  the  references  to  Motley's  position, 
thinking  that  of  course  Sumner  would  pass  the  hint  along 
to  his  friend  at  the  English  court;  instead,  he  ignored  it 
entirely.  Motley's  biographer,  the  lovable  Oliver  Wendell 
Holmes,  writing  after  the  historian's  death,  alludes  to  the 
then  unnamed  writer  as  "a  faithless  friend,  a  disguised 
enemy,  a  secret  emissary,  or  an  injudicious  alarmist."15 

For  a  year  matters  drifted;  but  as  we  shall  see  affairs  in 

14  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  p.  129. 
1B  O.  W.  Holmes:  Memoir  of  John  Lothrop  Motley,  pp.  178-179- 

[72] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

America  were  such  as  to  make  Secretary  Fish's  role  one  of 
difficulty.  The  President  was  engrossed  in  his  desire  to 
annex  San  Domingo;  and  the  Secretary,  though  not  at 
heart  in  favor  of  the  project,  loyally  endeavored  to  support 
the  President's  policy  after  he  had  once  entered  upon  it. 
He  also  sought  out  Sumner  and  tried  to  persuade  him  to 
support  the  treaty  in  the  Senate ;  the  misunderstanding  be 
tween  Grant  and  Sumner  in  regard  to  this  support  will 
be  discussed  in  a  succeeding  chapter.  It  not  only  re 
sulted  in  a  quarrel  between  Grant  and  Sumner;  but  later 
involved  Fish,  who  had  so  earnestly  tried  to  effect  a  work 
ing  agreement  between  them.  But  other  events,  extraneous 
in  their  origin,  now  entered  into  the  situation.  Prussian 
troops  lay  encamped  around  Paris ;  France  was  surrounded 
by  the  enemy.  There  was  indeed  no  certainty  that  Great 
Britain  would  not  in  some  way  become  involved  in  the 
general  continental  storm.  It  behooved  her  then  to  settle 
all  outstanding  disputes,  so  that  her  slate  might  be  clean 
for  whatever  fate  might  have  in  store. 

At  this  turn  of  events,  Grant,  at  the  suggestion  of  his 
Secretary  of  State,  inserted  into  his  annual  message  of  De 
cember  5,  1870,  this  paragraph,  which  was  written  by  Secre 
tary  Fish:  "I  regret  to  say  that  no  conclusion  has  been 
reached  for  the  adjustment  of  the  claims  against  Great 
Britain  growing  out  of  the  course  adopted  by  that  Govern 
ment  during  the  rebellion.  The  cabinet  of  London,  so  far 
as  its  views  have  been  expressed,  does  not  appear  to  be 
willing  to  concede  that  Her  Majesty's  Governmnt  was  guilty 
of  any  negligence,  or  did  or  permitted  any  act  during  the 
war  by  which  the  United  States  has  just  cause  of  complaint. 
Our  firm  and  unalterable  convictions  are  directly  the  re 
verse.  I  therefore  recommend  to  Congress  to  authorize  the 

[73] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

appointment  of  a  commission  to  take  proof  of  the  amount 
and  the  ownership  of  these  several  claims,  on  notice  to  the 
representative  of  Her  Majesty  at  Washington,  and  that 
authority  be  given  for  the  settlement  of  these  claims  by  the 
United  States,  so  that  the  Government  shall  have  the  owner 
ship  of  the  private  claims,  as  well  as  the  responsible  control 
of  all  the  demands  against  Great  Britain.  It  cannot  be 
necessary  to  add  that  whenever  Her  Majesty's  Government 
shall  entertain  a  desire  for  a  full  and  friendly  adjustment 
of  these  claims  the  United  States  will  enter  upon  their  con 
sideration  with  an  earnest  desire  for  a  conclusion  consistent 
with  the  honor  and  dignity  of  both  nations."16 

How  completely  this  "earnest  desire"  was  fulfilled,  and 
with  what  credit  it  redounds  to  the  memory  of  Secretary 
Fish,  we  shall  now  see;  for  in  truth  it  has  become  his 
monument;  and  because  of  it  he  shall  live  in  history. 

16  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  Vol.  VII, 
p.  102. 


[74] 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE  TREATY  OF  WASHINGTON — CONTINUED 

GREAT  BRITAIN  was  quick  to  respond  to  the  over 
ture  of  President  Grant  to  renew  negotiations.  In 
less  than  five  weeks  from  the  publication  of  the 
message  she  had  dispatched  Sir  John  Rose  to  America  with 
authority  to  extend  to  our  Government  friendly  suggestions 
in  regard  to  an  early  settlement  of  the  "Alabama  Claims." 
The  British  unofficial  envoy  arrived  in  the  United  States 
early  in  January,  1871,  and  immediately  hurried  on  to 
Washington,  where  he  dined  with  Secretary  Fish  on  the 
evening  of  his  arrival.  The  conference,  prolonged  into  the 
late  hours  of  the  night,  resulted  in  a  comprehensive  memo 
randum  which,  cast  into  proper  form  the  following  day 
by  Mr.  Rose,  was  received  by  the  Secretary  on  January  nth. 
Outwardly  the  coast  seemed  to  be  clear;  yet  in  point  of 
fact  menacing  features  were  still  to  be  surmounted  before 
real  progress  could  be  gained.  Though  Secretary  Fish  had 
expressed  himself  as  "inspired  with  hope"  on  the  receipt 
of  the  Rose  memorandum,  he  was  aware  of  the  ability  of 
Charles  Sumner  to  wield  formidable  opposition  to  any 
plan  which  aimed  to  bring  about  an  immediate  settlement 
with  Great  Britain,  provided  it  did  not  meet  with  his  un 
qualified  approval.  Events  also  had  occurred  in  the  mean 
time  which  made  the  Secretary's  position  yet  more  difficult 
in  so  far  as  any  personal  relation  with  the  Senator  was 
concerned.  Grant,  as  we  already  have  seen,  was  incensed 

[75] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

over  Sumner's  hostility  to  the  San  Domingo  treaty,  and 
partly  because  of  it  had  caused  Motley's  removal.  The 
Minister,  deeply  chagrined  over  the  premature  termination 
of  his  mission,  took  occasion  to  Elaborately)  record  the 
circumstances  which  had  resulted  in  the  dismissal,  in  which 
he  "had  referred  to  the  rumor  of  his  removal  on  account 
of  Sumner's  opposition  to  the  San  Domingo  treaty." 
Already  sorely  tried  over  Motley's  previous  conduct  which, 
with  Sumner's  treatment,  had  failed  to  appreciate  the  deli 
cate  situation  in  which  the  administration  was  placed,  Fish's 
long  restrained  feelings  gave  vent  in  a  letter  to  Mr.  Moran, 
then  acting  as  charge  d'affaires  at  London,  in  which  he 
said  that  the  rumor  had  originated  in  Washington,  "in  a 
source  bitterly,  personally,  and  vindictively  hostile  to  the 
President."1  Critics  charge  that  this  was  an  unfortunate 
display  of  ill-feeling,  and  coming  at  this  particular  time  that 
it  tended  to  add  fuel  to  the  already  lighted  flame.  The 
Secretary's  friends  say  that  he  was  most  forbearing  in  his 
treatment,  considering  Sumner's  attitude.  Sumner,  how 
ever,  resented  it  as  a  direct  attack  on  him,  and  presently 
broke  off  all  social  intercourse  with  the  Secretary. 

Such  was  the  state  of  affairs  very  briefly  outlined  when 
Rose's  memorandum  reached  Secretary  Fish.  Cognizant 
of  the  personal  attitude  of  Sumner  towards  him,  the  Sec 
retary  paved  the  way  for  an  interview  through  a  mutual 
friend,  which  arranged,  took  place  on  January  I5th,  or  some 
six  days  after  Sir  John  Rose  had  reached  Washington.  The 
Rose  memorandum  was  read  to  Sumner  by  Fish,  who  after 
its  conclusion  endeavored  "to  obtain  from  Sumner  an  ex 
pression  of  opinion  as  to  the  answer  to  be  given  to  Rose" ; 
this  not  forthcoming  the  Secretary  then  stated  to  Sumner 

1  The  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  p.  171. 

[76] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

that  he  had  "come  officially  to  him  as  chairman  of  the  Sen 
ate  Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  to  ask  his  opinion  and 
advice;  that  he  was  entitled  to  it,  as  he  must  give  an  an 
swer."  In  reply  Sumner  said  that  the  matter  required 
"much  reflection."  Fish  then  requested  him  to  consider 
the  subject,  and  give  an  opinion  within  a  day  or  so.2 

Two  days  later,  on  January  I7th,  Sumner  returned  the 
memorandum  with  a  note  to  Fish  in  his  own  handwriting, 
which  is  still  extant,  in  which  he  admitted  the  contention 
of  Sir  John  Rose  that  "all  questions  and  causes  of  irrita 
tion  between  England  and  the  United  States  should  be  re 
moved  absolutely  and  forever,"  and  that  "all  points  of 
difference  should  be  considered  together."  But  to  this  he 
added  this  proposition,  which,  so  far  as  he  was  concerned, 
would  seem  to  have  served  as  an  ultimatum :  "The  greatest 
trouble,  if  not  peril,  being  a  constant  source  of  anxiety  and 
disturbance,  is  from  Fenianism,  which  is  excited  by  the 
British  flag  in  Canada.  Therefore  the  withdrawal  of  the 
British  flag  cannot  be  abandoned  as  a  condition  or  prelimi 
nary  of  such  a  settlement  as  is  now  proposed.  To  make  the 
settlement  complete,  the  withdrawal  should  be  from  this 
hemisphere  including  provinces  and  islands."3 

The  withdrawal  of  the  British  flag,  either  wholly,  or  in 
part,  from  the  continent  of  North  America,  was  not  a  new 
proposition;  for  the  withdrawal  of  Great  Britain  from 
Canada  had  frequently  been  discussed  during  the  initial 
stage  of  the  negotiations.  But  in  the  light  of  English  senti 
ment,  repeatedly  expressed,  it  must  be  viewed  now,  coming 
as  it  did  from  the  chairman  of  the  committee  which  would 

2  From  the  diary  of  Mr.  Fish,  extracts  of  which  are  found  in 
The  Treaty  of  Washington,  by  C.  F.  Adams,  Infra,  pp.  145-146. 
8  Moore :   International  Arbitrations,  Vol.  I,  p.  525. 

[77] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

have  to  report  the  treaty  to  the  Senate,  as  a  studied  move 
to  thwart  the  proposed  negotiation.  Secretary  Fish  was 
naturally  disheartened  that  Sumner  should  have  re-opened 
the  Canadian  issue  after  it  had  been  dropped  from  consid 
eration,  partly  because  of  Canada's  unwillingness  to  be  a 
party  to  the  separation,  and  partly  because  a  "large  propor 
tion  of  the  British  nation"  considered  with  Lords  Palmers- 
ton  and  Russell  that  "the  retention  of  Canada"  was  "essen 
tial  to  the  maintenance  of  British  honor."4 

But  however  Sumner's  position  may  have  disappointed 
the  Secretary  of  State  it  was  not  allowed  to  stand  in  the 
way  of  further  effort  to  deal  rationally  with  the  subject  in 
hand.  So  accordingly  on  January  24th  Secretary  Fish  laid 
before  Sir  John  Rose  the  now  historic  "hemispheric  flag- 
withdrawal  memorandum,"  which  the  latter  read  without 
comment.  The  Secretary  then  told  Sir  John  Rose  that 
after  very  careful  consideration  the  administration  had 
concluded  to  proceed  with  the  proposed  negotiation;  that 
if  Great  Britain  should  determine  to  send  especial  envoys 
to  treat  on  the  terms  agreed  upon,  the  administration  would 
zealously  work  "to  secure  a  favorable  result,  even  if  it 
involved  a  conflict  with  the  chairman  of  the  Committee  on 
Foreign  Relations  in  the  Senate."5 

This  was  communicated  by  Sir  John  Rose  immediately  to 
London;  within  a  few  days  the  Gladstone  Government 
reached  a  favorable  agreement,  and  empowered  the  British 
Minister  to  the  United  States,  Sir  Edward  Thornton,  to 
^DrmalT^  submit  to  the  Hon.  Hamilton  Fish,  the  Secretary 
ofState,  a  proposal  for  the  appointment  of  a  Joint  High 

4  Earl  Russell :  Recollections  and  Suggestions,  p.  395. 
6  Moore :  International  Arbitrations-,  Vol.  I,  pp.  528-530. 

[78] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Commission,  to  consist  of  five  persons  respectively  from 
the  two  governments,  to  sit  at  Washington,  for  the  purpose 
of  treating  all  questions  that  had  arisen  between  the  two 
countries  respecting  Great  Britain's  possessions  on  the  con 
tinent  of  North  America.  In  reply  Secretary  Fish  expressed 
the  willingness  of  the  administration  to  enter  upon  the 
negotiation,  provided  that  within  the  purview  of  the  settle 
ment  the  dissensions  growing  out  of  the  so-called  Alabama 
claims  should  be  included;  a  stipulation  to  which  the  Gov 
ernment  of  Great  Britain  readily  acceded. 

As  the  Commissioners  from  the  United  States  Grant 
appointed:  Hamilton  Fish,  Secretary  of  State;  Robert 
Cumming  Schenck,  newly  appointed  Envoy  Extraordinary 
and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  Great  Britain;  Samuel 
Nelson,  an  Associate  Justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme 
Court;  Ebenezer  Rockwood  Hoar,  late  Attorney-General 
in  the  Grant  cabinet ;  and  George  Henry  Williams,  Attor 
ney-General.  The  British  members  were :  The  Right  Hon 
orable  George  Frederick  Samuel,  Earl  de  Grey  and  Mar 
quis  of  Ripon;  the  Right  Honorable  Sir  Stafford  Henry 
Northcote,  a  leader  of  the  Conservatives  in  Parliament; 
Sir  Edward  Thornton,  Her  Majesty's  Envoy  Extraordinary 
and  Minister  Plenipotentiary  to  the  United  States;  Sir  *'*• 
John  Alexander  Macdonald,  Minister  of  Justice  and  Attor-  p«"*>c  * 
ney-General  of  Her  Majesty's  Dominion  of  Canada;  and  d^C 
Professor  Montague  Bernard,  Chichele  Professor  of  Inter 
national  Law  in  the  University  of  Oxford. 

These  gentlemen  convened  as  the  Joint  High  Commis 
sion  in  Washington  on  February  27th.  Mr.  Fish,  although 
he  declined  the  post  of  chairman  of  the  Commission,  be 
lieving  that  such  a  form  of  organization  would  retard  nego- 

[79] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

tiations,  guided  its  deliberations  throughout  with  both 
energy  and  skill.  On  the  8th  of  May,  1871,  the  treaty  was 
concluded;  and  on  the  loth  laid  before  the  Senate. 

An  event  had  occurred  in  the  meantime  which  must  be 
recorded  here  if  only  to  make  the  coherence  of  the  story 
complete.  When  Secretary  Fish  informed  Sir  John  Rose 
of  the  administration's  determination  to  proceed  with  the 
proposed  negotiation,  he  first  had  ascertained  if  he  could 
count  on  a  two-third  vote  of  the  Senate  for  confirmation. 
On  the  evening  of  his  last  interview  with  Senator  Sumner, 
the  Secretary  called  at  the  home  of  Senator  Morton,  and 
asked  whether  he  thought  that  a  treaty  on  the  basis  then 
under  consideration  could  be  ratified  by  the  Senate  against 
Sumner's  opposition?  Morton  thought  it  could;  and  upon 
being  told  that  Patterson  had  already  approved,  he  said, 
"that  gives  a  majority  of  the  committee,  and  there  can  be 
no  doubt  of  the  Senate."  Secretary  Fish  also  had  assur 
ances  of  support  from  the  leaders  of  the  opposition ;  namely, 
Senators  Bayard  and  Thurman.  Thus  "no  precaution  was 
neglected." 

But  this  did  not  seem  to  be  enough:  Sumner  was  still 
a  power.  Yet  there  seems  to  have  been  a  difference  of  opin 
ion  in  the  quintessence  of  the  Senator's  strength ;  some 
thought  that  his  influence  was  the  more  potent  over  Sena 
tors;  others,  that  it  lay  mainly  in  his  ability  to  "stir  up," 
in  the  language  of  Sir  Stafford  Northcote,  "a  great  deal  of 
bad  feeling  in  the  country,  if  he  were  so  minded."6  The 
latter  could  not  be  prevented;  the  former,  however,  could 
at  least  be  curtailed  by  removing  Sumner  from  his  Senatorial 
chairmanship,  a  course  which  was  agitated  four  months 
before  it  actually  took  place.  Those  who  defended  the 
«  Lang :  Northcote,  Vol.  II,  p.  23. 

[80] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

action  contended  that  both  in  theory  and  detail  Sumner 
stood  diametrically  opposed  to  a  foreign  policy,  pregnant 
with  uncertainty,  to  which  the  administration  was  com 
mitted;  that  a  large  majority  of  the  Senate  favored  this 
policy ;  that  when  he  notified  Secretary  Fish  in  unequivocal 
terms  the  course  he  advocated,  Sumner  had  put  himself 
entirely  out  of  harmony  with  his  party  on  the  one  issue 
then  uppermost  in  the  public  mind;  and  that  so  doing  he 
had  forfeited  his  right  to  be  retained  as  chairman  of  the 
Committee  on  Foreign  Relations  when  the  new  Congress, 
overwhelmingly  Republican,  was  about  to  assign  new  com 
mittee  appointments. 

The  other  position  may  be  summed  up  by  a  series  of 
questions,  as  indeed  it  was  by  Carl  Schurz.7  Should  a 
chairman  of  so  important  a  committee  as  that  on  Foreign 
Relations  of  the  Senate  of  the  United  States,  who,  not  in 
sympathy  with  an  administration  of  which  he  is  a  member, 
be  deposed  from  the  said  chairmanship,  because  of  his 
opposition  to  a  particular  treaty?  Again,  is  it  incumbent 
upon  a  chairman  to  support  a  treaty  merely  because  the  ad 
ministration  of  which  he  is  a  member  desires  favorable 
action?  If  so,  what  becomes  of  the  Senate  as  an  independ 
ent  factor  in  the  treaty-making  functions?  Would  not 
such  a  rule  be  wholly  a  misinterpretation  of  our  constitu 
tional  plan  of  government?  As  a  matter  of  fact  no  one 
questions  the  right  of  a  single  Senator  to  think  for  him 
self,  nor  to  vote  as  his  conscience  may  dictate.  The  fact 
that  Sumner  was  removed  before  the  treaty  was  laid  before 
the  Senate  savors  of  Executive  intermeddling,  which  is  not 

7  Carl  Schurz :  Speeches,  Correspondence,  Political  Papers,  Vol. 
VI,  p.  283. 

[81] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

observing  strictly  to  the  distinctive  functions  of  the  co 
ordinate  branches  of  government. 

Mr.  Sumner,  however,  acquiesced  in  the  provisions  of 
the  treaty,  and  it  was  duly  ratified  on  May  24,  1871 ;  and 
on  July  4th  proclaimed  to  the  world.  The  scene  now  shifted 
to  Geneva,  where  the  Arbitrators  having  been  named  by 
both  governments,  organized  the  Tribunal  on  December 
1 5th.  The  United  States  appointed  as  its  Arbitrator, 
Charles  Francis  Adams;  Great  Britain  chose  Lord  Chief 
Justice  Alexander  Cockburn;  the  King  of  Italy  named 
Count  Frederic  Sclopis;  the  President  of  the  Swiss  Con 
federation  designated  Mr.  Jacob  Staempfli,  and  the  Em 
peror  of  Brazil  named  the  Baron  dTtajuba.  The  Assistant 
Secretary  of  State,  J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis,  was  the  agent 
for  the  United  States,  while  the  American  counsel  com 
prised  three  very  distinguished  lawyers;  namely,  William 
M.  Evarts,  Caleb  Cushing,  and  Morrison  R.  Waite,  later 
Chief  Justice  of  the  United  States  Supreme  Court.  Lord 
Tenterden  was  Great  Britain's  agent,  and  Sir  Roundell 
Palmer,  the  chief  counsel.  Upon  convening  the  Tribunal, 
Count  Sclopis  was  elected  as  presiding  officer. 

Each  side  immediately  filed  its  case,  after  which  a  recess 
was  taken  to  the  following  June,  in  order  to  give  time  for 
the  contracting  parties  to  file  counter  cases.  The  British 
public  was  soon  discussing  with  a  degree  of  feeling  what 
they  considered  the  extravagant  claims  of  the  United  States. 
The  cause  of  rupture  came  over  the  claims  for  national  and 
indirect  damages ;  these  they  averred  should  be  withdrawn. 
Secretary  Fish  said  in  reply  that  "there  must  be  no  with 
drawal  of  any  part  of  the  claim  presented."  A  diplomatic 
discussion  then  followed  between  Lord  Granville,  the  Brit 
ish  Foreign  Secretary,  and  Secretary  Fish,  in  which  the 

[82] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

latter  "held  his  ground  with  great  courage  and  ability,  in 
sisting  that  the  claims  of  every  character  should  be  dis 
posed  of  by  the  Tribunal  in  order  to  remove  them  from 
the  domain  of  further  controversy,  and  in  order  to  estab 
lish  perfect  harmony  in  the  relations  of  the  two  countries."8 

Without  dilating  in  detail  the  imperilled  sessions  of  the 
conference,  which  more  than  once  almost  resulted  in  final 
suspension  of  all  activity  towards  a  settlement  of  the  ques 
tions  at  issue,  suffice  it  to  say  that  in  the  end  through  the 
firm  and  consistent  course  of  Secretary  Fish,  aided  by  the 
tact  and  ability  of  Charles  Francis  Adams,  the  Government 
of  the  United  States  succeeded  in  having  the  subject  of 
national  and  indirect  claims  passed  upon  to  the  satisfac 
tion  of  both  countries,  after  which  a  rapid  progress  towards 
a  final  conclusion  was  made.  On  September  Qth  the  de 
cision  was  reached;  on  the  I4th  it  was  proclaimed,  the 
award  being  $15,500,000  as  the  amount  due  to  the  United 
States  from  Great  Britain  for  the  loses  sustained  by  the 
depredations  of  the  Confederate  cruisers  Florida,  Alabama, 
and  Shenandoah.  Sir  Alexander  Cockburn  alone  declined 
to  sign  the  award. 

Thus  at  the  hands  of  an  impartial  Tribunal  the  principle 
of  arbitration  in  international  disputes  was  given  a  tre 
mendous  impetus ;  that  it  has  not  served  as  a  binding  prin 
ciple  for  all  international  disputes,  of  whatever  character, 
is  matter  for  regret.  Yet  in  the  years  to  come  may  we  not 
look  forward  to  its  re-establishment  among  the  nations  of 
the  world,  compelling  them  by  its  very  nature  to  observe 
it,  and  by  a  league  of  nations  to  be  protected  by  it. 

By  the  Treaty  of   Washington  and  the  Arbitration  at 

8  John  W.  Burgess :  Reconstruction  and  the  Constitution,  p.  312. 

[83] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Geneva  the  United  States  and  Great  Britain  bequeathed  to 
the  world  a  priceless  legacy.  For  this,  we  are  indebted  to 
Hamilton  Fish  more  than  to  any  other  person.  To  have 
been  the  chief  designer  of  so  momentous  a  piece  of  work 
in  statesmanship  is  fame  enough  for  any  man. 


[84] 


CHAPTER  VIII 

THE    CUBAN    REBELLION 

THE  influence  of  Fish  was  equally  dominant  in  the 
Cuban  agitation,  though  during  its  initial  stage  his 
restraining  guidance  was  of  necessity  concealed,  and 
consequently  the  public  knew  little  of  the  influence  he 
really  exerted  on  the  administration.  Previous  to  the  ad 
vent  of  Grant  the  discontent  of  the  Cuban  people  against 
Spanish  misrule  had  ripened  into  open  rebellion;  and  the 
sympathy  of  the  American  people  naturally  went  out 
towards  the  suffering  Cubans.  Cognizant  of  this  sentiment, 
certain  Cuban  promoters  of  the  revolution,  having  estab 
lished  headquarters  in  the  city  of  New  York,  began  to 
enlist  the  aid  of  our  Government  in  behalf  of  their  cause. 
They  soon  received  the  support  of  various  Government 
officials,  chief  among  whom  was  Rawlins,  Secretary  of  War, 
who  immediately  endeavored  to  induce  the  President  to 
issue  a  proclamation  extending  belligerent  rights  to  the 
Cubans,  which  would  have  placed  our  Government  in  a 
position  similar  to  that  of  Great  Britain  and  Spain  when 
they  recognized  Confederate  belligerency  in  the  early  days 
of  our  Civil  War.  Grant  was  inclined  to  accept  Rawlins' 
point  of  view;  and  so  early  as  June,  1869,  consulted  a 
number  of  public  men,  among  whom  was  Sumner,  as  to  the 
advisability  of  following  such  a  course.  Sumner  opposed 
it,  as  did  others  with  whom  the  President  counseled.  The 
cabinet  was  divided.  Fish,  who  was  already  feeling  his  way 
towards  reopening  the  Government's  case  in  the  Alabama 
claims  controversy,  at  once  perceived  the  inconsistency  of 

[85] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

even  a  perfunctory  declaration  of  our  grievance  of  the 
Queen's  proclamation  of  1861,  if  we  were  to  perform  a 
like  act  in  regard  to  a  body  of  insurgents  who,  as  he  later 
wrote,  "have  no  army — no  courts,  do  not  occupy  a  single 
town,  or  hamlet,  to  say  nothing  of  a  seaport — carrying  on 
a  purely  guerrilla  warfare,  burning  estates  and  attacking 

convoys,  etc. "  To  his  view,  "Great  Britain  or  France 

might  just  as  well  have  recognized  belligerency  for  the 
Black  Hawk  War." 

But  Rawlins  was  persistent ;  and  later  a  story  was  widely 
circulated  that  he  had  a  pecuniary  interest  in  the  success  of 
the  independence  of  Cuba.1  Grant  finally  yielded,  and 
ordered  a  proclamation  to  be  drawn  up.  This  he  signed  on 
the  night  of  August  iQth  in  the  cabin  of  a  Fall  River  boat, 
sending  it  back  to  Washington  by  the  Assistant  Secretary  of 
State,  Mr.  J.  C.  Bancroft  Davis,  with  a  note  to  Fish,  direc 
ting  him  to  sign  it,  affix  the  official  seal,  and  promulgate  it. 
Secretary  Fish  complied  with  the  President's  orders,  except 
as  to  issuing  the  proclamation,  which  he  withheld,  laying 
it  safely  away  for  further  directions,  which  never  came. 
In  the  meantime,  Grant's  mind  was  diverted  towards  other 
pursuits.  His  summer  vacation  was  hardly  over  before  he 
was  saddened  by  the  death  of  Rawlins,  who  died  on  Sep 
tember  6th ;  Wall  Street's  "Black  Friday"  followed  eight 
een  days  later.  In  the  midst  of  these  events  the  President 
seems  to  have  forgotten  about  his  proclamation.  Be  this  as 
it  may,  it  never  was  issued,  and  subsequent  circumstances 

1  But  this  was  untrue.  In  a  personal  letter  to  the  author,  Rawlins' 
biographer,  General  James  H.  Wilson,  writes  that  General  John  E. 
Smith,  who  was  Rawlins'  executor,  and  had  possession  of  and 
opened  his  effects,  s-ent  to  Wilson  some  few  years  before  his  death  an 
affidavit  in  which  he  declared  that  no  such  bonds  were  found  or 
ever  came  into  his  possession. 

[86] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

made  its  promulgation  inadvisable.  In  his  first  annual 
message,  in  December,  1869,  President  Grant  disavowed 
any  design  on  the  part  of  the  United  States  "to  interfere 
with  the  existing  relations  of  Spain  to  her  colonial  posses 
sions  on  this  continent."  But,  thinking  perhaps  of  the 
growing  sentiment  in  the  country  in  favor  of  belligerency, 
he  had  maintained  in  a  preceding  paragraph  "that  this 
nation  is  its  own  judge  when  to  accord  the  rights  of  bel 
ligerency,  either  to  a  people  struggling  to  free  themselves 
from  a  government  they  believe  to  be  oppressive,  or  to  in 
dependent  nations  at  war  with  each  other."2 

Congress  had  not  long  been  in  session  after  the  Christmas 
recess  before  the  subject  of  Cuban  belligerency  again  was 
broached.  Early  in  February,  1870,  John  Sherman  intro 
duced  in  the  Senate  a  resolution  in  favor  of  according 
belligerent  rights  to  Cuba,  and  made  a  speech  in  advocacy 
of  its  passage.  On  the  iQth  of  the  same  month  it  appears 
Fish  by  appointment  called  on  Sherman,  and  asked  if  he 
had  recently  examined  the  provisions  of  the  treaty  with 
Spain  of  1/95.  Sherman  replied  that  he  was  not  aware  of 
the  existence  of  such  a  treaty.  Fish  then  referred  to  its 
main  provisions,  especially  that  of  the  right  of  search,  which 
he  thought  our  Government  would  resist,  the  result  of 
which  probably  would  lead  to  war.  The  Secretary  finally  \  - 
advised  the  Senator  "to  prepare  bills  for  the  increase  of  the 
public  debt,  and  to  meet  the  increased  appropriation  which 
will  be  necessary  for  the  army,  navy,  etc."3 

Time  did  not  tend,  however,  to  abate  the  increasing  de- 

2  Richardson,  Messages  and  Papers  of  the  Presidents,  Vol.  VII. 
P.  32. 

8  From  the  diary  of  Mr.  Fish,  as  recorded  in  Adams'  The  Treaty 
of  Washington,  p.  216. 

[87] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

mand  on  the  part  of  the  public  for  recognition  of  belliger 
ency;  and  had  it  not  been  for  the  controlling  influence  of 
Fish  in  all  probability  Grant  would  have  succumbed  to  the 
pressure.  Being  informed  that  the  vote  in  the  House  would 
be  close  Fish  resolved  again  to  urge  the  President  to  send 
a  special  message  to  Congress,  setting  forth  the  reasons 
why  a  state  of  belligerency  was  not  then  expedient.  On  the 
1 2th  of  June  the  Secretary  retired  to  his  study  and  pre 
pared  such  a  message,  which  treated  the  entire  subject  ex 
haustively.  On  the  1 3th  it  was  laid  before  the  President 
and  the  Cabinet,  and  with  but  slight  changes  was  sent  by 
the  President  to  Congress  on  the  same  day. 

The  message  was  received  with  mingled  cries  of  approval 
and  of  disapprobation.  A  spirited  debate  ensued,  with 
"much  denunciation" ;  but  as  Fish  records  in  his  diary, 
"it  evoked  also  much  good  sense,  in  the  speeches  of  those 
who  sustained  it;  an  expression  of  good,  sound  international 
law,  and  of  honesty  of  purpose."  It  focused,  moreover,  the 
attention  of  Congress  on  a  foreign  problem  of  grave  im 
portance,  and  solidified  the  party.  Fish  had  triumphed; 
and  his  policy,  precarious  as  it  may  have  been  at  first  of 
adoption,  had  prevailed.  Hoar  and  Cox  called  it  "the  great 
est  triumph  the  administration  had  yet  achieved";  and 
Robeson,  Secretary  of  the  Navy,  added,  "Yes — the  first 
triumph."  "I  felt,"  writes  Fish  in  his  diary,  "that  the 
Cuban  question  was  the  one  on  which  perhaps  more  than 
on  any  other,  the  sensational  emotions  of  the  party  and  of 
the  country  might  be  arrayed  in  opposition  to  what  is  hon 
est  and  right.  Believing,  as  I  do,  that  the  public  sentiment, 
however  much  influenced  by  questions  of  sentiment,  and 
of  supposed  popular  impulse,  is  sure  eventually  to  be  just 
and  correct,  I  have  pressed  this  question  in  the  way  I  have 

[88] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

done,  and  first  tried  the  proposed  message  submitted  a 
short  time  since;  finding  the  President  would  not  adopt  it, 
I  tried  the  latter  message,  and  he  was  induced  with  great 
hesitation,  and  with  much  reluctance  to  sign  it,  and  after 
it  was  sent  in  he  told  me  that  he  feared  he  had  made  a 
mistake.  I  never  doubted  the  propriety  of  it,  nor  the  policy 
of  it,  in  the  mere  sense  of  ordinary  politics."4  Grant 
eventually  came  to^deeply"  appreciate  the  manner  in  which  Mr^ 
his  Secretary  of  State  had  handled  the  Cuban  affair.  "On 
two  important  occasions,"  he  is  recorded  as  having  said  to 
Fish,  "your  steadiness  and  wisdom  have  kept  me  from  mis 
takes  into  which  I  should  have  fallen."  One  related  to 
the  non-issuance  of  the  proclamation  of  Cuban  belligerency; 
the  other  to  the  Cuban  message  of  June  I3th,  which  was 
written  solely  by  Fish,  and  which  caused  the  administra 
tion  to  inaugurate  a  fixed  policy  in  regard  to  Spain  and 
Cuba. 

But  the  Cuban  imbroglio  was  still  to  continue  to  perplex 
the  administration;  and  Secretary  Fish  confronted  each 
new  complication  with  undaunted  courage  and  a  profound 
confidence  in  his  ability  to  surmount  it.  As  the  desultory 
conflict  in  Cuba  continued,  the  difficulty  of  handling  the 
situation  increased.  But  our  relations  with  the  then  Spanish 
Republic,  over  which  Castelar  was  President,  were  finally 
brought  to  a  head  and  indeed  clarified  by  an  atrocious 
and  unexpected  event,  which  if  it  had  been  managed  with 
less  delicacy  probably  would  have  involved  us  in  war.  It 
gave  Secretary  Fish,  however,  an  opportunity  of  showing 
in  the  midst  of  public  clamor  that  he  was  a  man  who  could 
not  be  swerved  from  his  convictions;  and  history  may 

4  From  the  diary  of  Mr.  Fish,  as  recorded  in  Adams'  The  Treaty 
of  Washington,  Appendix  E,  pp.  219  and  220. 

[89] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

rightly  praise  the  fair  and  prompt  course  on  which  he  based 
his  official  acts. 

On  October  31,  1873,  while  on  her  way  from  Kingston, 
Jamaica,  to  a  port  in  Cuba  a  steamer  called  the  Virginius, 
having  an  American  registry  and  flying  the  stars  and  stripes, 
but  loaded  with  war  material  and  carrying  a  large  number 
of  men,  was  sighted,  pursued,  and  seized  by  a  Spanish  war 
ship,  and  conducted  to  Santiago.  Less  than  a  week  later 
fifty-three  of  the  passengers  and  crew,  having  been  con 
demned  to  death  by  summary  court-martial,  were  executed 
under  conditions,  to  use  the  words  of  Fish,  of  "peculiar 
brutality." 

Of  these  eight  were  American  citizens.  There  was  no 
concealment  of  our  feelings  when  the  news  reached  Amer 
ica.  Those  who  had  long  advocated  intervention  now 
thought  the  time  was  ripe  to  strike.  Popular  excitement 
everywhere  prevailed;  and  war  talk  for  a  time  superseded 
all  other  questions.  Largely  attended  meetings  of  protest, 
non-partisan  in  character,  were  held  in  two  of  the  biggest 
halls — Tammany  and  Steinway — in  the  city  of  New  York 
on  November  I7th.  William  M.  Evarts  presided  at  the 
meeting  at  Steinway  Hall,  and  made  a  thrilling  address. 
S.  S.  Cox  followed  Evarts  in  an  impassioned  appeal. 
Telegrams  were  read  from  Wendell  Phillips,  Joel  Parker, 
Governor  of  New  Jersey,  Henry  Ward  Beecher,  Vice- 
President  Henry  Wilson,  and  others  of  equal  prominence. 
"If  international  law  does  not  furnish  a  precedent,"  de 
clared  Governor  Ingersoll,  of  Connecticut,  "our  Govern 
ment  should  furnish  a  precedent  for  international  law."8 

Thus  in  an  hour  which  required  poise  and  temperate 
speech  there  were  those  who  would  have  rushed  us  into 

B  New  York  Tribune,  November  18,  1873. 

[90] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

war  without  a  complete  knowledge  of  the  facts.  Fish, 
fortunately,  was  cool-headed;  but  this  did  not  make  him 
less  ardent  in  his  determination  to  act  with  promptness  and 
decision.  "The  capture  on  the  high  seas  of  a  vessel  bear 
ing  the  American  flag,"  he  telegraphed  on  November  7th 
to  General  Sickles,  our  minister  to  Spain,  "presents  a  very 
grave  question,  which  will  need  investigation  .  .  .  and  if 
it  prove  that  an  American  citizen  has  been  wrongfully 
executed,  this  Government  will  require  most  ample  repara 
tion."  On  the  1 2th,  Secretary  Fish  cabled  to  Sickles  that 
doubts  existed  as  to  the  right  of  the  Virginius  to  carry  the 
American  flag,  and  concluded  by  saying  that  "investigation 
is  being  made."  "Unless  abundant  reparation  shall  have 
been  voluntarily  tendered,"  he  again  cabled  Sickles  on  the 
1 4th,  "you  will  demand  the  restoration  of  the  Virginius 
and  the  release  and  delivery  to  the  United  States  of  the 
persons  captured  on  her  who  have  not  already  been 
massacred,  and  that  the  flag  of  the  United  States  be  saluted 
in  the  port  of  Santiago,  and  the  signal  punishment  of  the 
officials  who  were  concerned  in  the  capture  of  the  vessel 
and  the  execution  of  the  passengers  and  crew.  In  case 
of  refusal  of  satisfactory  reparation  within  twelve  days  you 
will  .  .  .  close  your  legation  and  leave  Madrid."8 

In  the  meantime  the  Spanish  President  had  expressed  to 
Sickles  his  profound  regret  of  the  tragedy,  and  there  is  no 
reason  to  disbelieve  his  sincerity.  This  tended  to  clear  the 
air,  for  it  showed  that  the  Spanish  hostility  towards  us, 
which  was  said  to  have  prevailed  to  an  extraordinary  de 
gree,  had  been  exaggerated.  Sickles,  another  example  of 
one  untrained  in  diplomacy,  being  sent  to  an  important  mis 
sion,  at  times  blundered.  This  finally  led  Secretary  Fish  to 

6  Foreign  Relations,  1874,  pp.  927,  936. 

[91] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

take  up  the  negotiations  with  Admiral  Polo,  the  Spanish 
minister  at  Washington ;  and  with  the  approval  of  President 
Grant  they  reached  an  agreement  satisfactory  to  both 
nations.  Spain  was  to  deliver  up  the  Virginias,  and  her 
survivors  to  our  Government;  give  ample  indemnity  to  the 
families  of  those  Americans  who  had  been  executed,  and 
salute  the  American  flag.  On  December  i6th,  the  Vir- 
ginius  was  turned  over  to  the  American  authorities  at 
Bahia  Honda,  but  as  she  was  proceeding  to  New  York, 
sank  in  a  storm  off  Cape  Fear;  the  survivors,  however, 
were  picked  up  and  reached  New  York  safely.  The  in 
demnity  for  the  benefit  of  the  sufferers,  and  for  the  families 
of  those  who  were  so  unlawfully  executed,  was  ultimately 
secured.  But  the  Attorney-General,  having  come  to  the  con 
clusion  that  the  Viginius  was  not  entitled  to  carry  our  flag 
or  to  have  an  American  registry  at  the  time  of  her  capture, 
a  salute  was  not  required. 


[92] 


CHAPTER  IX 

RELATIONS  WITH  SAN  DOMINGO THE  CURRENCY  VETO 

SECRETARY  FISH  had  been  unhampered,  as  we  have 
seen,  in  his  conduct  of  the  Cuban  problem ;  but  Grant 
was  less  pliable  when  his  views  in  regard  to  San 
Domingo  were  opposed.  Soldier-like  he  sought  to  dis 
cipline  those  who  looked  with  disfavor  upon  his  project  of 
annexation ;  and  when  without  deference  to  legality  or  prec 
edent,  he  attempted  to  exert  all  the  power  at  his  command 
to  further  his  designs,  a  situation  arose  which  caused  not 
only  a  serious  breach  in  the  ranks  of  his  own  party,  but  a 
considerable  lowering  of  the  prestige  of  his  administration. 
It  is  not  certain  just  when  Grant  began  to  take  an  interest 
in  San  Domingo ;  he  may  have  kept  his  personal  views  in 
regard  to  the  subject  at  first  somewhat  concealed.  Yet  it  had 
been  discussed  freely  around  the  cabinet  table;  but  as  one 
member  wrote  years  later,  "there  was  a  general  acquies 
cence  in  the  opinion  of  Mr.  Fish  that  a  cordially  friendly 
attitude  to  the  actual  government  in  San  Domingo,  with 
decided  discouragement  to  all  intervention  and  filibustering, 
should  be  our  policy."1  Grant,  however,  was  hardly  seated 
in  the  presidential  chair  before  a  representative  of  the 
Baez  government  urged  upon  him  intervention.  Nor  was 
this  the  first  time  that  Baez  had  attempted  to  seek  the  aid 
of  our  Government,  for  he  had  not  permitted  Johnson  to 
be  unmindful  of  his  wishes.  Baez's  reasons  in  making 
overtures  to  both  Johnson  and  Grant  of  course  were 

1  Cox:  How  Judge  Hoar  Ceased  to  be  Attorney-General.    Atlantic 
Monthly   (Aug.,  1895),  Vol.  LXXVI,  p.  165. 

[93] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

obvious.  The  stability  of  his  government  was  uncertain: 
his  rival,  Cabral,  whom  he  had  only  lately  succeeded,  was 
on  the  Haytian  frontier,  waiting  an  opportunity  to  regain 
his  lost  domain.  That  his  country  was  in  a  ferment  of 
revolution  only  intensified  his  ardor.  If  he  could  not  rule 
supreme,  his  vehement  foe  must  not  rule  at  all. 

If  Grant  erred  in  judgment,  it  must  be  forgiven  in  the 
general  disinterestedness  of  his  motives,  however  his  meth 
ods  of  procedure  were  open  to  criticism.  To  him  the  pos 
session  of  San  Domingo  would  mean  a  refuge  for  the 
negroes  of  the  South;  it  would  also  extend  our  national 
area,  and  thus  increase  our  natural  resources.  At  the  time 
he  thought  that  certain  European  powers  had  their  eyes  on 
San  Domingo,  and  he  wished  to  maintain  the  doctrine  that 
no  territory  on  this  continent  should  be  acquired  by  a  Eu 
ropean  power. 

But  the  honest  purposes  of  Grant  did  not  deter  a  majority 
of  his  associates  in  the  Government  from  looking  at  the  mat 
ter  differently.  It  was  urged  against  the  annexation  scheme 
that  by  it  our  strictly  continental  entirety  would  be  broken, 
and  that  foreign  territory  would  involve  us  in  extraneous 
complications.  Others  were  of  opinion  that  our  own  negro 
race  presented  a  problem  of  sufficient  magnitude  without  as 
suming  the  government  of  still  another  colored  population ; 
that  indeed  it  was  unjust  to  the  race  of  which  they  were  a 
part  to  take  from  the  Dominican  people  their  territory 
over  which  they  were  entitled  to  work  out  for  themselves 
the  problem  of  self-government.  Still  other  objections,  of 
more  or  less  weight,  were  advanced ;  but  without,  it  may  be 
said,  resulting  in  changing  the  views  of  the  President. 

Early  in  May,  1869,  President  Grant  suggested  to  his 
cabinet  that  inasmuch  as  the  Navy  authorities  were  desirous 

[94] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

of  having  the  Bay  of  Samana  as  a  coaling  station,  he  would 
dispatch  General  Orville  E.  Babcock  to  San  Domingo  to 
investigate  as  an  engineer  the  natural  resources  of  the  coun 
try,  and  report  on  the  subject.  The  original  instructions, 
as  signed  by  Secretary  Fish,  limited  Babcock's  trip  to  one 
simply  of  inquiry.  Whether  Grant  privately  supplemented 
these  instructions  is  not  known;  that  he  approved  of 
Babcock's  entire  course  is  evident  by  a  letter  to  Senator 
Nye,  which  appeared  in  the  Washington  Republican  of  De 
cember  23,  1870,  and  which  closed  with  these  words :  "Gen 
eral  Babcock's  conduct  merits  my  entire  approval."  When 
the  general  tenor  of  this  conduct  is  considered  it  becomes 
the  more  amazing.  On  September  4,  as  an  "Aide-de-camp 
to  his  Excellency,  Ulysses  S.  Grant,  President  of  the  United 
States,"  a  title  which  Babcock  assumed  apparently  of  his 
own  accord  in  the  negotiations,  he  induced  the  Dominican 
officials  to  sign  a  treaty  which  provided  for  the  annexation 
of  their  country  to  the  United  States,  and  for  the  payment 
of  $1,500,000  by  the  United  States  for  the  extinguishment 
of  the  Dominican  debt.  The  protocol  also  contained  a 
stipulation  to  the  effect  that  the  President  would  use  pri 
vately  his  influence  to  persuade  members  of  the  Senate  to 
ratify  the  treaty. 

Before  Babcock  left  for  San  Domingo,  however,  an  inci 
dent  occurred  which  clearly  demonstrated  that  the  con 
fidential  aspect  of  the  mission  was  not  being  properly 
guarded,  and  that  the  Department  of  State  was  being  com 
promised.  The  President  informed  the  members  of  the 
cabinet  one  day  that  the  merchants  of  New  York  who  had 
extensive  trade  interests  in  the  island  had  offered  to  Babcock 
a  complimentary  passage  on  one  of  their  vessels.  With 
unconcealed  surprise  Secretary  Fish  declared  "that  it 

[95] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

seemed  to  him  very  undesirable  that  General  Babcock 
should  be  the  guest  of  merchants  having  great  trading  in 
terests  in  San  Domingo,  whilst  he  was  upon  a  confidential 
investigation  for  the  President."2  Grant,  catching  Fish's 
idea,  assented,  and  said  that  as  the  navy  was  about  to  send 
vessels  down  to  join  the  West  India  squadron,  he  would 
direct  that  Babcock  be  furnished  with  transportation  upon 
one  of  them. 

Presently  Babcock  returned,  bringing  with  him  a  treaty 
of  annexation,  as  above  stated.  "What  do  you  think?"  de 
clared  Secretary  Fish  to  Secretary  of  the  Interior  Cox,  with 
great  astonishment,  "Babcock  is  back,  and  has  actually 
brought  a  treaty  for  the  cession  of  San  Domingo ;  yet  I 
pledge  you  my  word  he  had  no  more  diplomatic  authority 
than  any  other  casual  visitor  to  that  island  !"3  Mr.  Fish's 
position  was  one  of  embarrassment,  but  he  was  disposed  to 
let  the  matter  pass  as  a  State  secret,  little  dreaming  at  this 
juncture  that  the  President  would  defend  the  action  of 
Babcock.  At  the  next  cabinet  meeting,  instead  of  taking 
up  the  work  of  each  department  as  usual,  Grant  it  seems  led 
off  by  saying :  "Babcock  has  returned,  as  you  see,  and  has 
brought  a  treaty  of  annexation.  I  suppose  it  is  not  formal, 
as  he  had  no  diplomatic  powers;  but  we  can  easily  cure 
that.  We  can  send  back  the  treaty,  and  have  Perry,  the 
consular  agent,  sign  it;  and  as  he  is  an  officer  of  the  State 
Department  it  would  make  it  all  right."4 

Grant's  advisers  were  nonplussed.  After  a  painful  silence 
of  some  few  minutes,  Cox  it  appears  volunteered  the  in- 

2  Cox:  How  Judge  Hoar  Ceased  to  be  Attorney-General,  Atlantic 
Monthly  (Aug.,  1895),  Vol.  LXXVI,  p.  166. 
» Ib.,  p.  166. 
*Ib.,  pp.  166,  167. 

[96] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

quiry,  "But  Mr.  President,  has  it  been  settled,  then,  that 
we  want  to  annex  San  Domingo?"  Grant,  evidently  em 
barrassed,  "smoked  hard  at  his  cigar";  and,  turning  to 
Fish,  on  his  right,  as  if  to  shift  the  answer  to  the  head  of 
the  Department  to  which  the  subject  by  right  belonged, 
found  the  eyes  of  the  Secretary  intent  "on  the  portfolio 
before  him."6  No  one  ventured  to  speak  further  on  the 
subject,  nor  was  it  ever  again  discussed  by  the  cabinet. 

But  Fish,  who  had  all  along  treated  the  question  of  an 
nexation  only  as  current  gossip,  now  found  himself  in  a 
most  unfortunate  position.  Not  only  had  the  prerogatives 
of  his  office  been  overlooked,  but  his  personal  sincerity 
would  be  called  in  question;  for  under  the  circumstances 
he  could  not  divulge  the  manner  in  which  the  Department 
of  State  had  been  disregarded;  and  yet  he  had  assured 
Sumner  and  others  that  the  annexation  issue  was  but  idle 
talk,  of  which  there  was  absolutely  no  foundation  in  fact. 
There  was  but  one  thing  for  him  to  do,  tender  his  resigna 
tion,  which  he  did.  To  this  Grant  would  not  listen;  and 
after  much  persuasion,  coupled  with  much  outside  pressure, 
Fish  consented  to  postpone  his  resignation,  but  only  because 
the  paramount  sense  of  duty  towards  the  consummation 
of  another  problem,  of  greater  importance,  overcame  his 
natural  predisposition. 

The  treaty,  having  been  signed  and  transmitted  to  the 
Senate  for  ratification  early  in  December,  remained  in  the 
possession  of  that  body  until  its  final  rejection  in  the  fol 
lowing  June.  During  this  interval,  Grant,  as  Babcock  had 
promised,  exerted  his  personal  influence  in  behalf  of  its 
ratification.  He  elicited  the  aid  of  his  cabinet,  summoned 

5  Cox:  How  Judge  Hoar  Ceased  to  be  Attorney-General,  Atlantic 
Monthly  (Aug.,  1895),  Vol.  LXXVI,  p.  167. 

[97] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

Senators  to  the  White  House,  and  there  endeavored  to  have 
them  commit  themselves  in  favor  of  ratification.  "The 
headquarters  of  this  activity,"  says  Cox  "were  in  the 
private  secretary's  office  at  the  Executive  Mansion.  Papers 
and  files  from  the  State  Department  were  sent  for  and 
retained  without  even  the  formality  of  using  the  President's 
name  and  authority,  so  that  Mr.  Fish  was  obliged  to  protest 
against  the  irregularity,  and  demand  that  it  be  stopped.  He 
was  ready,  he  said,  to  attend  the  President  with  any  papers 
in  his  department  at  any  time,  but  he  could  not  permit  their 
custody  to  be  transferred  to  any  other  place."6 

But  the  precipitancy  of  the  President,  and  the  methods  of 
his  subordinates,  created  an  insuperable  barrier  by  arousing 
the  sensibilities  and  apprehensions  of  certain  Senators,  chief 
of  whom  was  Charles  Sumner,  chairman  of  the  Committee 
on  Foreign  Relations.  This  was  unfortunate,  not  that 
Sumner's  opposition  alone  defeated  the  ratification  of  the 
treaty;  any  more  than  that  a  less  vigorous  intervention  on 
the  part  of  the  President  would  have  led  Sumner  to  favor 
the  treaty,  for  we  believe  that  other  reasons  were  more 
potent  in  determining  his  course  than  the  mere  fact  of  his 
antipathy  towards  Grant.  Yet  one  more  gifted  in  the  art 
of  political  strategy  than  Grant  proved  to  be  might  have 
won  rather  than  alienated  those  whose  support  he  needed. 
But  Grant  belonged  by  birth  and  temperment  to  a  sec 
tion  of  our  country  noted  for  a  type  of  rugged  and  inde 
pendent  manhood.  The  texture  of  his  mind  disqualified 
him  from  perceiving  any  other  point  of  view  than  that  to 
which  he  had  directed  his  thought;  and  his  want  of  tact 
may  also  be  said  to  have  minimized  the  effectiveness  of  his 

6  Cox :  How  Judge  Hoar  Ceased  to  be  Attorney-General,  Atlantic 
Monthly  (Aug.,  1895),  Vol.  LXXVI,  p.  168. 

[98] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

political  leadership.  But  from  his  previous  career  one 
could  hardly  expect  him  to  have  been  otherwise.  Too  long 
had  he  been  surrounded  with  camp  etiquette  to  be  the  dis 
creet  and  subtile  harmonizer  of  the  intricacies  of  states- 
craft.  He  chafed  under  opposition,  and  at  times  was  im 
petuous  and  sardonic;  yet  to  one  who  took  the  trouble  to 
understand  him  Grant  was  in  the  words  of  Fish  "a  very 
true  man,  and  warm  friend — accustomed  to  deal  with  men 
of  more  frankness  and  sincerity,  and  loyalty  to  a  cause, 
than  many  of  those  whom  the  business  of  Washington 
attracts  hither."7 

The  narrative  of  the  San  Domingo  controversy  during 
the  period  the  treaty  was  before  the  Senate,  and  later  when 
the  subject  was  renewed,  is  an  interesting  bit  of  political 
history,  but  would  far  exceed  the  scope  of  this  study.  But 
knowing  the  temperamental  differences  between  Grant  and 
Sumner  a  clash  between  two  such  positive  forces  was  in 
evitable.  But  it  may  be  said,  however,  that  before  the 
Massachusetts  Senator  had  become  an  element  of  dis 
cord,  Grant  pursued  a  most  deferential  attitude  in  his  zeal 
to  gain  the  support  of  Sumner,  as  evidenced  by  his  call 
early  in  January  at  the  Senator's  home.  That  Grant  as 
sumed  more  in  the  way  of  aid  than  Sumner 's  answer  im 
plied  must  be  attributed  to  a  misunderstanding  on  the  part 
of  the  President.  Simmered  down  to  a  final  analysis  Grant 
was  not  skillful  in  dealing  with  men  whom  he  could  not 
dominate.  Fish  remains  one  of  the  few  exceptions.  He 
was  as  little  like  Grant  as  Sumner.  But  Fish  succeeded 
where  Sumner  failed  in  that  he  knew  how  to  handle  the 
President.  At  the  outset  he  was  no  more  in  sympathy  with 

7  From  Mr.  Fish's  diary,  Adams :  The  Treaty  of  Washington, 
P.  247. 

[99] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

the  project  of  annexing  San  Domingo  than  Sumner,  yet 
when  it  had  been  made  an  issue  by  the  administration,  the 
Secretary  did  what  he  could  to  sustain  it.  As  a  loyal  cabinet 
officer  he  could  have  done  no  less.  Sumner  might  have 
opposed  the  treaty  and  yet  remained  a  friend  of  Grant,  as 
did  others  who  were  equally  as  hostile  to  ratification.  But 
Sumner  thought  Fish  ought  to  resign.  We  know  now 
that  the  Secretary  would  have  welcomed  retirement,  and 
that  more  than  once  he  actually  asked  to  be  relieved  of  his 
official  duties  which  had  become  irksome.  That  patriotic 
reasons  solely  deterred  him  from  taking  the  final  step  may 
now  with  certitude  be  affirmed;  for  between  him  and  the 
President  there  had  come  to  be  an  understanding  that  the 
Secretary  should  have  full  authority  in  the  conduct  of  all 
other  business  of  his  Department.  Thus  Fish  became  the 
bulwark  of  the  administration,  and  the  oracle  through 
whom  great  diplomatic  victories  were  won. 

Another  issue  of  paramount  importance  with  which 
Grant  had  to  deal,  and  in  which  the  influence  of  Fish  was 
felt,  was  on  the  question  of  the  currency.  Of  domestic 
problems  at  the  close  of  the  war,  second  only  to  recon 
struction,  lay  the  adjustment  of  the  nation's  finances.  The 
war  had  lasted  four  years;  and  a  national  debt  of  nearly 
three  billions  of  dollars  had  accumulated.  To  liquidate 
this  debt,  so  as  to  make  the  process  of  funding  easier;  to 
regulate  taxation  in  conformity  of  the  debt  policy;  and  to 
restore  the  old  standard  of  value  to  a  specie  basis,  were  the 
immediate  problems  which  confronted  the  Government. 
Without  going  into  the  history  of  the  Currency  question 
during  the  Johnson  administration,  it  may  be  said  that  be 
fore  Grant  came  into  office  a  long  period  of  financial 
controversy,  in  which  diversity  of  opinion  was  almost  as 

[100] 


HAMILTON  FISH'/ 

voluminous  as  the  leaves  in  the  Vallombrosan  Vale,  had 
engaged  the  attention  of  Congress. 

Meanwhile,  public  opinion  had  become  imbued  with  the 
proposition  of  funding  the  debt  in  greenbacks.  The  argu 
ments  in  favor  of  such  a  policy  were  indeed  numerous. 
It  was  contended,  for  example,  to  be  unfair  to  pay  bond 
holders  in  coin,  when  other  creditors  received  depreciated 
paper;  and  that  inasmuch  as  there  was  not  explicit  provi 
sion  of  the  law  under  which  they  were  issued,  except  as  to 
interest,  the  Government  was  not  compelled  to  redeem  the 
bonds  in  coin.  These  arguments,  whatever  may  now  be 
thought  of  their  worth,  appealed  with  irresistible  force 
to  many  of  our  statesmen,  for  whom  the  retention  of  power, 
or  the  obtainment  of  it,  seem  to  have  been  the  only  con 
sideration.  Both  parties  were  affected  by  this  financial 
heresy.  Though  it  was  denounced  in  the  Republican 
national  platform  of  1868,  certain  Republican  leaders, 
among  whom  were  Sherman,  Butler,  and  Morton  of  In 
diana,  favored  it.  Several  Republican  State  conventions  of 
the  West,  moreover,  endorsed  the  proposition.  Even  An 
drew  Johnson,  then  seeking  a  presidential  nomination,  such- 
cumbed  to  the  fallacious  teachings  of  the  Greenback  move 
ment.  The  payment  of  the  bonds  in  greenbacks,  instead  of 
by  coin,  was  incorporated  into  the  national  platform  of  the 
Democratic  party  in  1868,  though  its  presidential  candidate, 
Horatio  Seymour,  did  not  approve  of  that  particular  plank. 

But  when  Grant  entered  upon  his  presidency,  the  Repub 
licans  in  Congress  at  once  endeavored  to  redeem  their  cam 
paign  pledges  in  regard  to  the  currency.  The  President 
called  an  extra  session  of  the  Congress,  and  on  March  18, 
1869,  the  celebrated  "Act  to  Strengthen  the  Public  Credit" 

[101] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

became  law.    It  solemnly  pledged  the  faith  of  the  nation  to 
the  payment  in  coin,  or  its  equivalent,  of  all  obligations  oi 
the  United  States,  except  when  other  provision  was  plainly^ 
stipulated  in  the  law  by  which  the  issue  was  authorized. 

During  the  next  few  years  the  country's  economic  condi 
tion  passed  through  every  stage  of  fluctuation  known  to  the 
financial  world.  The  climax  was  reached  with  the  country 
wide  panic  of  1873,  which  with  other  causes,  moved  Con 
gress  to  action.  At  this  juncture  a  still  further  issue  of 
paper  money  was  deemed  necessary.  To  meet  this  demand 
an  inflation  bill  received  the  sanction  of  both  Houses  of  the 
Congress,  in  spite  of  the  strenuous  protests  of  the  sound 
money  men,  and  early  in  April,  1874,  reached  the  President. 
Grant  was  in  a  dilemma ;  great  pressure  was  brought  to 
bear  on  him  to  sign  the  bill.  Some  of  his  chief  supporters, 
such  as  Logan  and  Morton,  men  in  whom  the  President 
had  great  confidence,  had  been  most  urgent  in  their  ad 
vocacy  of  the  bill ;  and  now  they  sought  to  persuade  Grant 
to  approve  it.  It  has  also  been  maintained  by  one  in  close 
touch  with  the  situation  that  all  but  two  members  of  the 
Cabinet  were  in  favor  of  the  bill ;  the  two  who  opposed  the 
measure  were  Secretary  of  State  Fish  and  Postmaster- 
General  Creswell. 

At  first  President  Grant  decided  to  sign  the  bill,  and  went 
so  far  as  to  prepare  a  message  in  which  he  set  forth  his 
reasons  for  approving  the  measure.  After  thinking  over 
the  question  more  carefully  he  became  undecided  as  to  the 
proper  cause  to  pursue.  He  then  called  in  Secretary  Fish, 
who  very  candidly  and  fully  gave  his  reasons  why  the  bill 
should  be  vetoed.  More  than  one  conference  on  the  sub 
ject  was  held  between  the  President  and  his  Secretary  of 
State.  On  April  2ist,  Grant  stated  to  his  Cabinet  his  final 

[102] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

conclusion,  and  read  the  veto  message,  which  was  sent  to 
Congress  on  the  following  day. 

That  body  hardly  anticipated  the  result;  for  it  had  been 
led  to  believe  that  Grant  was  not  opposed  to  a  slight  in 
flation;  and  some  of  his  past  acts  served  to  confirm  this 
belief.  Under  the  circumstances,  however,  the  veto  was  a 
very  creditable  act.  "For  twenty  years,"  wrote  Garfield, 
"no  President  has  had  an  opportunity  to  do  the  country 
so  much  service  by  a  veto  message  as  Grant  has  and  he  has 
met  the  issue  manfully."  Historians  also  are  agreed  that  it 
is  one  of  the  worthiest  single  deeds  of  Grant's  executive 
achievements.  But  due  credit  must  be  given  to  the  potent 
arguments  of  at  least  two  advisers,  who  saw  clearly,  and 
reasoned  logically.  One  of  these  was  Senator  John  P. 
Jones,  of  Nevada,  whose  financial  opinions  carried  great 
weight  with  President  Grant;  the  other  Hamilton  Fish, 
whose  "position  and  reasons,"  declares  George  F.  Edmunds, 
former  United  States  Senator  from  Vermont,  "were  more 
influential  than  those  of  any  other  man  in  inducing  the 
President  to  take  the  course  he  did  on  that  occasion."8 

8  George  F.  Edmunds,  Memorial  Address  Before  the  Legislature 
of  New  York,  April  5,  1894,  pp.  55,  56. 


CHAPTER  X 

IN  RETIREMENT MAN  AND  STATESMAN 

A  THE  presidential  term  of  General  Grant  came  to 
a  close,  the  President  naturally  took  an  interest  in 
the  approaching  election,  and  in  the  choice  of  his 
successor.  It  was  no  secret  among  his  intimate  friends  that 
he  would  have  been  pleased,  not  alone  because  of  his  fitness, 
but  as  an  endorsement  of  the  administration,  to  have  had 
Secretary  of  State  Fish  fall  heir  to  his  mantle.  The 
vehement  cohorts  of  Elaine  and  of  Conkling  presaged  a 
struggle  the  intensity  and  bitterness  of  which  were  destined 
to  result  in  the  selection  of  a  candidate  not  affiliated  with 
either  camp  of  these  two  political  chieftains.  This  Grant 
apprehended ;  and  desiring  that  the  Republican  party  should 
select  from  its  best  timber,  he  wrote  a  letter  to  be  read  to 
the  convention  when  it  should  appear  certain  that  neither 
Blaine  nor  Conkling  could  win,  and  when  the  time  was 
propitious  for  the  mention  of  another  candidate,  in  which  he 
advised  the  nomination  of  Hamilton  Fish. 

The  letter,  however,  was  never  read,  and  Mr.  Fish  knew 
nothing  of  its  existence  until  long  afterwards.  It  may  also 
be  observed  in  this  connection  that  President  Grant  was  not 
the  only  one  to  suggest  the  nomination  of  Secretary  Fish. 
A  day  or  more  before  the  Republican  convention  of  1876 
convened,  Tom.  Nast  published  a  front-page  caricature  in  a 
New  York  newspaper  in  which  he  was  represented  as  sug 
gesting  Fish  and  Hayes  as  a  winning  ticket.  The  next  week 
in  another  caricature  the  cartoonist  congratulated  himself 

[104] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

upon  the  partial  success  of  his  suggestion.  When  this  sec 
ond  picture  was  shown  to  Mr.  Fish  he  is  said  to  have  re 
marked  :  "Well,  I'm  glad  Nast  had  to  scratch  me  off.  I've 
got  enough  of  politics." 

And  this  was  said  with  perfect  sincerity;  for  Mr.  Fish 
had  long  looked  forward  to  the  time  when  he  could  retire 
and  spend  the  remainder  of  his  days  in  the  seclusion  of  his 
family  and  friends.  He  had  now  reached  a  time  of  life 
when  the  joy  of  freedom  and  the  peace  of  mind,  which 
comes  to  those  who  after  an  eventful  life  lay  off  the  cares 
of  official  duties,  was  welcome.  His  health  at  this  time 
was  on  the  whole  good,  though  frequently,  as  much  as  eight 
years  before  his  death,  he  writes  in  a  private  letter,  that  he 
suffered  from  "painful  neuralgia  troubles,  to  which  I  am 
subject,"  and  which  "so  often  interrupt  me  in  the  midst 
of  whatever  I  may  have  on  hand"  and  which  "leave  me  un 
fit  for  any  effort." 

For  sixteen  years  Secretary  Fish  lived  in  retirement,  en 
joying  the  memories  of  great  things  accomplished;  and 
thus  surrounded  by  the  esteem  of  friends,  and  the  affection 
of  his  family ;  with  children  of  the  third  and  fourth  genera 
tion  gathered  around  his  hearth  stone;  venerated  by  his 
countrymen ;  and  secure  of  lasting  remembrance,  he  passed 
his  evening  of  life. 

There  is  not  much  more  to  relate.  The  end  came  quite 
suddenly.  On  the  evening  of  September  6,  1893,  Mr. 
Fish  felt  as  well  as  usual,  and  had  enjoyed  before  retiring 
a  game  of  cards  with  his  daughter,  Mrs.  Benjamin.  He 
seemed  cheerful  when  he  bade  her  good  night.  But  the 
following  morning,  soon  after  arising,  and  while  sitting  in 
his  chair,  he  passed  quietly  away,  Mrs.  Benjamin  being  the 
only  member  of  the  family  present  when  the  end  came.  He 


HAMILTON  FISH 

was  eighty-four  years  old,  and  death  was  attributed  to  old 
age.  He  rests  in  the  cemetery  of  St.  Philip's  church  in 
the  Highlands,  where  other  members  of  his  family  are 
interred. 

Here  the  distinguished  statesman  lies  not  far  from  his 
beautiful  home  at  Garrison,  which  skirts  the  waters  of  the 
majestic  Hudson,  on  whose  banks,  like  Irving,  he  was  wont 
to  personally  supervise  the  affairs  of  his  large  estate,  and 
while  away  many  a  quiet  hour.  Opposite,  to  the  right,  may 
be  seen  the  Government  buildings  at  West  Point,  as  they 
stand  out  abruptly  against  the  rugged  cliffs  of  rock,  for 
which  the  Highlands  of  the  Hudson  are  famed ;  still  farther 
up  the  river  stands  Storm  King  mountain  like  some  sentinel 
guarding  the  peaceful  villages  over  which  her  shadows  fall. 

In  such  a  setting  the  life  of  Hamilton  Fish  passed  out; 
and  no  more  beautiful  location  could  have  been  selected  by 
the  aged  statesman  in  which  to  pass  the  remainder  of  his 
days.  Actuated  by  the  purest  motives,  and  the  innate  de 
sire  to  serve  his  fellowmen,  Hamilton  Fish  entered  upon 
one  of  the  most  precarious  of  careers  with  faith  in  his  own 
rectitude,  and  desired  no  other  emolument  save  the  satisfac 
tion  of  adding  another  name  to  those  who  have  served  man 
kind  for  the  love  of  service.  Free  from  cant  or  those 
petty  jealousies  and  prejudices  which  so  often  drag  the 
reputations  of  statesmen  down  to  the  leval  of  politicians, 
in  the  worse  sense  of  that  term,  Mr.  Fish  used  the  language 
and  practised  the  manners  of  a  gentleman.  The  patience 
and  fidelity  he  displayed  were  not  less  conspicuous  than  the 
inflexibility  of  will  with  which  he  served  the  interests  of 
his  country,  for  above  all  he  was  a  patriot  "in  whose  honor 
and  integrity,"  to  use  the  words  of  another,  "there  has  never 
been  found  a  flaw." 

[106] 


HAMILTON  FISH 

He  belonged,  moreover,  to  a  type  of  American  gentleman 
long  since  passed  on.  The  type  of  whom  Calhoun  and 
Benton,  Webster  and  Clay,  were  among  the  most  conspic 
uous  representatives.  Stately  in  appearance;  courteous  of 
bearing;  conservative  in  thought;  slow  to  anger;  of  pleasing 
personality,  he  could  when  occasion  required  leave  no 
uncertainty  as  to  where  he  stood.  Mr.  Charles  Francis 
Adams,  in  a  letter  to  Carl  Schurz,  observes  that  Mr.  Fish 
possessed  in  his  make  up  "a  good  deal  of  that  Dutch  ele 
ment  ;"  that  he  was  "a  quiet  and  easy-going  man ;  but,  when 
aroused,  by  being,  as  he  thought,  'put  upon/  he  became  very 
formidable.  Neither  was  it  possible  to  placate  him." 

His  letters,  however,  show  him  to  have  been  a  man  just 
in  his  estimate  of  men;  not  caring  for  the  plaudits  of  the 
crowd,  yet  appreciating  kindly  references  of  his  efforts ; 
shrinking  from  undue  publicity,  but  at  the  same  time  ever 
ready  to  stand  without  reservation  for  any  idea  the  prin 
ciple  of  which  he  conceived  to  be  right.  The  precepts  to 
which  he  clung  in  private  life,  he  also  carried  with  him  into 
public  station.  Generosity,  fairness  in  dealing  with  an 
opponent,  and  steadfast  fidelity  were  practised  as  conscien 
tiously  in  his  public  career,  as  they  were  in  private  life. 

These  qualities  were  in  the  man;  and  while  used  to  the 
luxuries  of  life  he  was  as  much  averse  to  the  snobbishness 
and  dehumanizing  tendency  of  class  hatred  as  any  son  who 
springs  from  a  less  lavish  environment.  Mr.  Fish  believed 
in  the  dignity  of  labor,  whether  of  the  brain  or  of  the 
muscle,  when  conducted  wholesomely ;  and  he  conceived  it 
to  be  his  duty  as  a  public  servant  to  ignore  all  superficial  dis 
tinctions  which  had  no  bearing  on  the  ability,  the  character, 
or  the  usefulness  of  the  man  whom  he  was  to  appoint.  And 
he  was  the  greater  for  this  catholicity  of  selection. 


HAMILTON  FISH 

The  opportunity  for  the  performance  of  great  public 
service  came  to  Mr.  Fish  late  in  life,  but  this  very  fact  per 
haps  was  of  greater  benefit  to  his  country  than  if  he  had  not 
possessed  the  experience  and  poise,  the  well-trained  mind, 
and  painstaking  characteristic,  which  was  so  esential  in 
dealing  with  so  fateful  a  chapter  of  our  international  his 
tory  as  the  events  leading  up  to  and  culminating  in  the 
Treaty  of  Washington.  Nor  has  history  lost  sight  of  these 
qualifications,  with  which  Mr.  Fish  was  so  splendidly  en 
dowed.  Indeed  they  have  drawn  from  one  of  his  suc 
cessors  the  tribute,  we  think  justly  bestowed,  that  Mr.  Fish 
"was  one  of  the  most  useful  secretaries  who  ever  adminis 
tered  the  affairs  of  the  Department  of  State."1 

The  wide  influence  of  Secretary  Fish  with  members  of 
Congress  also  made  him  an  invaluable  asset  to  the  adminis 
tration  of  President  Grant,  and  although  he  had  his  share 
of  criticism,  he  commanded  men's  confidence  and  respect 
by  his  firmness,  candor,  and  justice.  He  was  genial,  and 
his  wide  range  of  reading,  especially  along  historical  and 
political  lines,  made  him  an  interesting  host.  Thus  among 
our  Secretaries  of  State  his  name  will  take  rank  with  the 
greatest  who  have  filled  that  office;  and  history  when  she 
comes  to  record  a  final  judgment  will  also  place  the  name 
of  Hamilton  Fish  among  those  who  by  their  character  have 
elevated  the  public  service.  And  no  greater  tribute  can  be 
paid  to  the  memory  of  those  who  have  not  labored  in  vain 
to  make  of  our  country  a  land  of  freedom  and  of  oppor 
tunity. 

1 A  Century  of  American  Diplomacy,  by  John  W.  Foster,  p. 
436. 


[108] 


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